October 10, 2012

Playing Princeton University Chapel’s Organ, Cameron Carpenter Dazzles Audience

Organ recitals are not known for drawing crowds of fans leaping to their feet after a number played by an unseen artist on an instrument often a mystery to all but those who play it, but Pennsylvania native Cameron Carpenter is no ordinary organist and his recital on Saturday night at the Princeton University Chapel was far from a staid series of 18th and 19th-century pieces. Organ audiences often have no idea what is going on back there with the keyboards and pedals, but Mr. Carpenter has addressed this problem by making his performances multi-media. For Saturday night’s performance, this included a “picture in a picture” large screen, with cameras trained on his hands and feet. The four keyboard manuals of the University Chapel’s 1928 Aeolian-Skinner organ took up most of the screen, with a smaller view of the pedals, and even the most novice audience member could marvel at Mr. Carpenter’s technical agility and feathery touch on the keys. Many times during the performance, audience members could be seen shaking their heads in amazement at what would have been much less appreciated without the screens. Mr. Carpenter’s concert included only eight pieces (one of which was twenty-five minutes long), but the program included variety between classical and popular music and repertoire which showed Mr. Carpenter’s growth in confidence as an artist since he last played in the chapel.

Mr. Carpenter’s technical strengths include the incredible power of his hands, with the ability to stretch an interval of a 6th between two fingers; and the speed of his feet, requiring great balance on the bench. The success of his career as an organist is also due to his imagination, shown in the first few pieces he played. Beginning with his own arrangements of popular tunes, it was not until the fourth piece that Mr. Carpenter played a complete piece as it was actually written. His impressionistic fantasias on a theme from The Summer of ’42 and “Hey Jude” capitalized on the dynamic capabilities and stop combinations of the chapel’s organ, with his uncanny ability to extend his hands among manuals. His arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Suite #1 for Unaccompanied Cello (with his own interpolated passages) was played largely on the pedals, and his interpretations of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor found great drama in the work and quick tempi for the fugue.

Mr. Carpenter’s evolution as a performer was seen in his choice of works by Richard Wagner, Charles Ives, and in particular Franz Liszt. Liszt would have liked Cameron Carpenter. A musical renegade himself, Liszt took the polite early 18th-century piano and turned it into a monster virtuoso instrument through performance technique many at the time thought must have come from demonic possession. With similar spell-binding technique (although rooted in his own self-discipline and talent), Mr. Carpenter is presenting the organ as a concert instrument capable of much more than what churches and funeral parlors can provide. Through his registration choices, Mr. Carpenter found humor in the excerpt from Ives’ Piano Sonata Number 2, and his quick and light touch on the Choir Manual depicted the “murmuring forest” of Wagner’s Siegfried excerpt.

Mr. Carpenter saved the most powerful and complex piece for last: Liszt’s Fantasie und Fuge über den Choral “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam” from Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Le Prophéte. Liszt originally composed this massive work for organ, but Mr. Carpenter no doubt took the piece to new heights, emphasizing the importance of opera in 19th-century keyboard music and taking full advantage of the organ’s 137 ranks and more than 7,000 pipes. Mr. Carpenter’s performance held the audience through the entire twenty-five minutes, but this was not a piece he necessarily would have done several years ago when he first played recitals at the University Chapel and Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. Including a work such as this on the program showed that Mr. Carpenter’s reputation as a brilliant and original performer is secure, and audiences are hungry to hear not only complex organ works not often heard but what Mr. Carpenter will do next.


October 3, 2012

Humor and Horror Thrive in “Gruesome Playground Injuries;” 2009 Dark Comic Drama Presents Painful, Moving Romance

MISMATCH OR MADE FOR EACH OTHER?: Doug (Brad Wilson) and Kayleen (Katherine ­Ortmeyer) find themselves drawn together through many calamities over the course of 30 years, in Theatre Intime’s production of Rajiv Joseph’s “Gruesome Playground Injuries” at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus through October 6.

Never thought of vomiting together as a bonding experience? Never fancied a romantic date that consisted of touching each other’s wounds? Never thought of “gruesome” and “entertaining” together to describe a play you’d want to see? Well, there’s a first time for everything, and Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries (2009), in a captivating production opening Theatre Intime’s 2012-13 season, delivers many surprises.

Eight-year-old Doug and Kayleen meet for the first time in the school nurse’s office. In this scene titled “Age 8: Face Split Open,” Kayleen describes her stomach ache and Doug describes how he injured his face by riding his bike, Evel Knievel-style off the school roof. Kayleen, fascinated, wants to touch his wound, then picks pieces of gravel out of his hands.

The first of eight scenes centered on various injuries sustained by both characters over a thirty-year period, this childhood encounter sets the tone for the rest of the evening and the future relationship between Doug and Kathleen.

Accident-prone and self-destructive, both continue to hurt themselves in an astonishing variety of ways. Doug, seemingly driven by his unrequited love for Kayleen, blows out an eye with fireworks, gets his teeth knocked out in a fight, steps on a nail then breaks his leg while inspecting a damaged building, gets struck by lightning while on his roof, and falls off a telephone pole (“Maybe if I could climb to the top of this telephone pole in the rain at night, like the mast of a ship lost at sea, maybe I’ll see the shine of you, bringing me home again.”) Kayleen, who realizes her pain-based connection and at times even holds a healing power over Doug, is unable to requite his love. She suffers less dramatically but no less devastatingly by cutting herself — legs and stomach — and undergoing “about 25 medications” and psychiatric treatments.

Whether Kayleen and Doug are mismatched or made for each other never becomes clear, but their relationship remains loving, sensual, and unconsummated, full of mental and physical anguish on both sides, much more about pain than happiness or anything approaching conventional romance.

Yes, the play definitely lives up to its title, emphasis on “gruesome.” But this 90-minute, two-character show, skillfully and creatively directed by Princeton University junior Laura Gates and performed with style, focus, and commitment by senior Bradley Wilson and junior Katherine Ortmeyer makes for an entertaining evening.

Mr. Joseph’s dialogue is sharp, realistic, often funny and touching. Though Mr. Joseph, whose Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, provides little background beyond Kayleen’s broken home with a harsh father and absent mother, the characters here are richly engaging, intriguing, and surprisingly appealing and sympathetic.

Mr. Wilson’s Doug is charming in his recklessness, honesty, and boyish bravado. His love for Kathleen, manifested in such dramatic fashion, is never in doubt and never diminished as the scenes jump forwards and backwards in time through three decades. Ms. Ortmeyer’s Kathleen is more complex, also increasingly broken physically and mentally as the play progresses, but perhaps even more troubling than her counterpart in her inwardness, her inability to commit, her quiet self-destructiveness.

Despite occasional lines that are difficult to hear, Ms. Ortmeyer creates a rich three-dimensional character, and the relationship established here is fascinating, at times even heartwarming and amusing. The fact that even the vomit scene — the protagonists again in the nurse’s office at school, this time at age thirteen as a school dance is going on in the background (“Our throw up is all mixed together. You wanna see? So awesome.”) — is more sweetly comical than grotesque surely attests to the creative powers of playwright and performers.

Ms. Gates has staged the play with clarity and focus. The eight short scenes, titles for each written on an easel on stage left, move along smoothly, with original music by Mark Watter and Matt Seely helping to set the mood and bridge the gaps. The simple, flexible, functional set by Amy Gopinathan, lighting by Marissa Applegate, and realistic costuming by Annika Bennett are appropriate and on target. As the drama between Doug and Kayleen progresses, between scenes the actors remain on stage, Ms. Ortmeyer stage right, Mr. Wilson stage left, changing costumes and putting on make-up.

The actors’ preparations, sometimes elaborate as they “create” various wounds and transition from age eight through five-year increments to age thirty-eight, add a significant element to the production. The breaks between scenes, the titles and the non-chronological sequence of events, the appearance of the actors “behind the scenes,” all have a certain distancing effect for the audience. Rather than being invited to lose ourselves in the lives of Doug and Kayleen, we are constantly reminded that we are watching actors as they present these characters. Curiously though, watching the actors’ preparations between scenes also adds a certain intimacy, distancing us perhaps from the lives of Doug and Kayleen, but at the same time inviting us into the theatrical process as Mr. Wilson and Ms. Ortmeyer take on these personas, get into character to struggle with the lives and passions of these troubled souls.

Ms. Ortmeyer, Mr. Wilson, Ms. Gates, and the Theatre Intime company team up with the 38-year-old Mr. Joseph here to provide an eccentrically interesting evening, and the promise of worthy future theatrical adventures.


September 19, 2012

Brentano String Quartet Opens Fall Season with Creative and Inspired Program

For the past several years, the Brentano String Quartet, Resident String Quartet at Princeton University, has kicked off the fall music season in Princeton with a free concert in Richardson Auditorium. Mid-September can be a time when families are getting adjusted to the school year or getting children organized at college, but enough people took a break from early fall activities last Friday night to almost fill Richardson as violinists Mark Steinberg and Serena Canon, violist Misha Amory and cellist Nina Lee  presented their annual concert. This Quartet could easily get away with just playing the classics, but Friday night’s concert proved that these musicians have been thinking imaginatively. The concert was part of a multi-venue commissioning project to assign an unfinished fragment or work of music to a contemporary composer to write a companion piece.

The fragments themselves are works of art. Behind many great masterpieces are the composer’s sketchbooks and unfinished thoughts, and in these days of computerized composition programs, these fragments are gems as one can hear a composer’s thought processes until something interrupted the work or pulled the composer in another direction. Particularly in the case of the Franz Schubert and J.S. Bach fragments, one wondered what was going on in the life and mind of the composer that these pieces ended in the middle of a solo phrase. This was the challenge to the contemporary composer — to pick up where the 18th or 19th-century master had left off and forge a new path for the music.

Charles Wuorinen drew his inspiration for his Marian Tropes from the 15th century sacred music of Josquin and Dufay. Staying true to the early Renaissance contrapuntal and harmonic styles, Mr. Wuorinen interwove open interval sonorities and tapered Josquin cadences into a tonal work with echoing phrases and a drone which might have been heard at the time from a sackbut or low stringed instrument. The occasional jarring glissando or discord reminded the audience that this is the 21st century, and the four members of the Brentano Quartet smoothly passed what would have been vocal lines among their instruments.

Franz Schubert lived such a short time and composed so much seemingly flawless music that an unfinished work of his is like a diamond just needing a bit of polish. It is unclear why Schubert never finished what is now called a Quartettsatz in C Minor, and American composer Bruce Adolphe maintained the lyrical thought of Schubert’s complete “Allegro assai”and fragmented “Andante.” The great Schubertian tune of the first movement was conveyed by Mr. Steinberg as first violinist, and picked up by cellist Ms. Lee in Adolphe’s Fra(nz)g-mentation.  Adolphe incorporated a jagged rhythmic drive into the quick tempo borrowed from Schubert’s first movement, and the musicians easily found the lyricism and musical gentility of Schubert’s style.

The fragment treatment which contrasted most dramatically with its original material was Sofia Gubaidulina’s Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H, based on Bach’s unfinished “Contrapunctus XVIII” from The Art of the Fugue. Whereas Bach’s peaceful “Contrapunctus” was nicely blended in the Brentano Quartet, with an especially elegant melodic line from second violinist Ms. Canin, Ms. Gubaidulina’s arrangement provided a great deal of variety in dynamics with sharp instrumental lines and driving rhythms, conveying the composer’s well-known unconventional approach to sound.

All of the composers commissioned by the Brentano String Quartet for this “Fragments” project found great challenge in examining unfinished musical art from previous centuries and bringing them into the 21st century. John Harbison, who composes in almost every genre, found humor and sauciness in his “Finale” to Haydn’s unfinished Quartet in D Minor. Amidst the rhythmic drive of the Harbison piece, the members of the Brentano Quartet showed that they were independent players, yet cognizant of one another and always working together. The final Mozart fragment and its follow-up Mozart Effects by jazz composer Vijay Iyer flowed right into each other, with an almost indiscernible end of the old and beginning of the new. It was fitting that the Brentano Quartet ended this inventive musical concert with a work of Mozart, whose final unfinished Requiem has spawned some of the most significant musical mystery discussions of the past two centuries.


Christopher Durang Channels Chekhov in McCarter World Premiere; Star-Studded Cast Mixes Regret and Sadness with Absurdist Comedy

Sigourney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce in the world premiere of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang at McCarter Theatre Center. Directed by Nicholas Martin, the production, which is produced in association with Lincoln Center Theater, runs through October 14. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

When “Chekhovian”—sadness, regrets, introspection, frustration—meets “Durangian”—wild absurdities, astonishing eccentricities, anarchic comedy—the results turn out to be both moving and hilarious. Christopher Durang’s new play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which opened at McCarter’s Berlind Theatre last weekend, populates its contemporary Bucks County setting with a collection of characters loosely based on figures from the turn-of-the-century (1900) Russian playwright’s somber masterpieces.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is full of contemporary references, to its present-day setting and the world of pop culture, and at the same time imbued with Chekhovian nostalgia and memories of a kinder, gentler past, in this case the 1950s and ‘60s, of these characters’ and Mr. Durang’s youth.

The updating and geographical shift work well. Certain artists’ names become adjectives for a reason, something to do with timelessness and universality, as Emily Mann obviously realized four years ago in her creation of A Seagull in the Hamptons, a contemporary adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull (1896). Mr. Durang, now 63, describes in an interview how “a few years ago I was at a place in my life where a lot of Chekhov’s characters are, where they’re looking back and asking ‘did I take the right road?’, ‘oh, I didn’t do that and I should have,’ and ‘I didn’t go to Moscow, should I have?’” Mr. Durang had moved to a farmhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which further brought to mind the world of Chekhov’s plays and his characters, who “are living in the country and their more glamorous relatives are off doing things out in the world while the people who are living at home feel like they haven’t had lives.”

The distinguished cast here, under the direction of Nicholas Martin, Durang veteran and former director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Boston’s Huntington Theatre, delivers with style and poignancy this hybrid of outrageous comedy and sad, moving family drama—“Chekhov in a blender,” as Mr. Durang describes it.

Mr. Durang has written several of the funniest plays of the past 40 years, from The Marriage of Bette and Boo (1973), Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You (1979) and Beyond Therapy (1981) to Betty’s Summer Vacation (1999) and Miss Witherspoon (another McCarter premiere in 2005). Mr. Durang, less acerbic, a bit gentler in his satire and characterizations but no less hilarious than he was in his earlier work, is in excellent form here and this top-flight McCarter production serves the play brilliantly.

Three of the finest, and most celebrated, veteran comedic actors anywhere portray the protagonists here, three middle-aged siblings, given names out of Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters — Vanya (David Hyde Pierce), Sonia (Kristine Nielsen) and Masha (Sigourney Weaver) — because their professor parents were enthusiasts of community theater and Chekhov in particular.

Vanya and Sonia, brother and (adopted) sister, live in the old family farmhouse, beautifully rendered in David Korins’ meticulously detailed set. The action of the play takes place in the sunroom with stairs leading up to the second floor and upstage exit leading to the front door and other parts of the house. From the sunroom, characters can look out on a pond, as they eagerly await — still waiting hopefully at the end of the play — the appearance of an auspicious blue heron.

Their dull, often contentious, lives are interrupted by the arrival of their self-absorbed, movie star sister Masha (Sigourney Weaver), who has been gallivanting around the world being a celebrity. She arrives with her much younger stud boyfriend Spike (Billy Magnussen), a wannabe actor with a penchant for taking off his clothes and parading around in his underpants. She summarily announces — shades of Chekhov — “I’ve decided to sell the house.” Masha is not particularly sensitive to the needs of her siblings or of anyone but herself, but she is the only one making a living and paying the bills.

The histrionic cleaning lady Cassandra (Shalita Grant) appears with a colorful array of moderately reliable psychic powers, blood-curdling prophecies and deft voodoo techniques; and Nina (Genevieve Angelson), a young star-struck neighbor, drops in, to Masha’s chagrin, on invitation from Spike.

The principals go out to a local costume party — Masha is determined to commandeer all attention as Walt Disney’s Snow White and to assign all other roles for her siblings and friends, and the action continues through one evening and into the next day.

The six-member ensemble is wisely, shrewdly cast and brilliantly focused, individually and as an interrelated group, in the creation of these eccentric and diverse individuals.

Mr. Pierce, who made his Broadway debut right out of college in the original production of Beyond Therapy in 1982, creates a character like his namesake in Chekhov, but less anguished, more peaceful, hopeful and happy in his consignment to a quiet life of regrets and only the most modest pleasures. Mr. Pierce’s deadpan style and searingly funny comic gift (renown on Broadway, Off-Broadway, on film, and perhaps most memorably as Niles in Frasier on TV) serve him well here, as he helps to ground his more exuberant sisters and captures both the Chekhovian nostalgia and the Durangian hilarity. He explodes into a show-stopping final-act diatribe on the value of “shared memories” — all lost to younger generations of the twenty-first century. Remember those postage stamps you had to lick? Typewriters? Howdy Doody, The Ed Sullivan Show, Davy Crockett and coonskin caps, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Annette Funicello and The Mickey Mouse Show and Old Yeller, all now replaced by “video games, in some virtual reality, where we would kill policemen and prostitutes as if that was some sort of entertainment “?

As Spike, whose texting during the reading of Vanya’s play set off the declamatory monologue, observes, “Wow, what’s up with him? That was a major flip out.”

Ms. Nielsen’s Sonia provides another unforgettable characterization in her over-the-top, bi-polar miseries and rages and her comical body language and vocal histrionics, as she laments her spinsterhood and her doomed rivalry with her glamorous sister. Even Sonia gets her moment, however, in the second act, as her Maggie Smith-as-Evil Queen at the costume party wins her the modicum of attention and accompanying self-confidence she has so sadly missed in the previous fifty years of her life. Her next-day telephone conversation with a man she met at the costume party is a tour-de-force of Durangian humor combined with Chekhovian poignancy, as we laugh loudly then empathize fondly from moment to tense moment. Durang aficionados will happily recall Ms. Nielsen’s brilliant star turns in Betty’s Summer Vacation and Miss Witherspoon, along with a host of other distinguished stage and screen credits.

Ms. Weaver, in this part created especially for her by Mr. Durang, who has been a friend and often a collaborator since Yale School of Drama in the early 1970s, embodies the role of Masha with flair, obviously delighting in taking on this extravagantly caricatured version of herself. Ms. Weaver (star in, among many other stage and screen appearances, Alien, Ghostbusters, Working Girl, Gorillas in the Mist, Avatar and the upcoming Vamps, in which she plays a vampire) delivers all the right moves to create this ultimate aging prima donna who has been gallivanting around the world. The character does appear as a one-dimensional stereotype, all surface, difficult to identify with, until late in the play when her misfortune — and the fact that she is contemplating a grandmother role in her next movie — brings her down to earth with a certain heartwarming humanity.

The three supporting characters are far from minor. Ms. Grant’s Cassandra, not Chekhovian but straight out of Greek mythology, injects a significant dose of adrenalin into the proceedings with her ominous predictions and her mystical, sassy, high-energy interactions with the main characters. Mr. Magnussen’s sexually charged, narcissistic Spike is another extreme stereotype and one from yet another dimension — certainly out of place in rural Bucks County or Chekhov’s world or amongst any adults, Masha excepted, over the age of 30. Mr. Magnussen makes the most of Spike’s incongruity in this setting to deliver a number of rich comedic moments.

As Nina — more Chekhovian echoes — the youthful Ms. Angelson presents an appealing, sincere and idealistic presence, and more thought-provoking contrast to illuminate the other extravagant figures in this play.

Because of the extensive allusions to Chekhov and also to popular culture of the past sixty years, the best audience for this play, which will move on from McCarter to Lincoln Center at the end of October, would undoubtedly be in Mr. Durang’s late middle-aged age group and preferably familiar with Chekhov’s Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and Cherry Orchard. But the good news is, even if you don’t qualify on one or both of these scores and even though you might miss some of the jokes, there is still plenty going on in Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Chekhov and Durang, along with Mr. Martin and his wonderful cast, provide a hilarious, lively, entertaining evening for all.

Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will run through October 14 at McCarter’s Berlind Theatre, 91 University Place in Princeton. For tickets, show times and further information, call 609-258-2787 or visit www.mccarter.org.


August 22, 2012

Debussy, Born 150 Years Ago Today: “One Can Travel Where One Wishes and Leave By Any Door”

Music is a dream from which the veils have been drawn! It’s not even the expression of a feeling — it is the feeling itself. —Claude Debussy (1862-1918), from a letter

On a spring morning in 1884 a classroom window at the Paris Conservatoire is open to the racket of horse-drawn omnibuses on the cobblestones of the rue du Faubourg–Poissonnière. At the piano sits a “dishevelled” 21-year-old student, “his shock of tousled hair constantly shaking,” as he produces “chromatic groanings in imitation of the buses … all the notes of the diatonic scale heard at once in fantastic arrangements; shimmering sequences of arpeggios contrasted with trills played by both hands on three notes simultaneously.” The performance continues until a supervisor hearing the “strange noises ringing through the corridors” puts a stop to it, branding the pianist “a dangerous ‘fanatic’ “ and ordering the “spellbound” students “to be off.”

In his rich two-volume biography, Debussy: His Life and Mind (Macmillan 1962), Edward Lockspeiser presents this “picturesque episode,” recalled after Debussy’s death by a fellow student, as an example of the way “all sounds must strike at some poetry” in “the mind of a musician.”

The same classroom observer, Maurice Emmanuel, was taking notes on a later occasion, during a conversation between the then-28-year-old Debussy and his former teacher, Ernest Guiraud. Debussy having just played a series of intervals on the piano, Guiraud asks “What’s that?” Debussy replies, “Incomplete chords, floating …. One can travel where one wishes and leave by any door. Greater nuances.” To which Guiraud responds, “I am not saying what you do isn’t beautiful, but it’s theoretically absurd.” Says Debussy, “There is no theory. You have merely to listen. Pleasure is the law.”

“Mystery in Art”

Drawn to that concept of composition, of music as a fluid infinitely malleable element and pleasure as the law, Debussy would surely have appreciated knowing that in a future time his work would be moving through the world at large giving comfort and joy and evoking wonderment and awe in intimate situations and unlikely environments far from the formal boundaries of the salon or concert hall, transmitted in forms undreamed of in his day, with plugged-in listeners walking, driving a car, flying across oceans and continents at 30,000 feet, or in the solitude of home, recumbent with headset in the dead of night, able to leave and return “by any door” with the push of a button, living, breathing, thinking music.

Debussy might be appalled at the idea of someone doing menial chores (the dinner dishes, in my case) while master pianist Aldo Ciccolini, born August 15, 1925, seven years after the composer’s death, is playing L’Isle Joyeuse, a work for piano composed in 1904. But this is Debussy, who could hear music in the sound of wheels on pavement while creating chromatic equivalents. Myself, I think he’d be tolerant of such mundane miracles, if not amazed and delighted, based on what evidence we have — the scene in the classroom, the conversation with Guiraud, and other statements, notably the one inspired by the paintings of JMW Turner, “the greatest creator of mystery in art.” Revert from the translation to Debussy’s actual words (“le plus grand créateur de mystère qui soit en art”) and it’s easier to see that he’s describing himself, his dream, his mission, which is how it often is when artists, whatever the medium, use works they admire to express the terms of their own aesthetic.

Admitted, “mystery” is a notoriously open term, but serviceable enough to express strange and wonderful transmissions such as the one from the young English poet who died in 1821, his name “writ in water,” the verse message reaching Debussy two months before his own death, sent by a friend who suggested the line, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,” from John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” was “implicitly dedicated” to a composer who once defined music as “the silence between the notes.”

Joy in Jersey

I mentioned L’Isle Joyeuse, which refers to Jersey, in the Channel Islands, where in July 1904 Debussy “eloped” with Emma Bardac (both being already married at the time), who would become his second wife and the mother of his only child. The composition for piano finds its way to La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, where it’s recorded in November 1991 by Ciccolini, one of the 16 pieces I’ve been listening to in August 2012 while the water’s running in the sink as I scrub and scour into the depths of a skillet that begins looking like one of Turner’s storms at sea as Debussy’s joyous Jersey idyll bursts forth from the Bose Wave sounding in the chiming trilling flux of demonically intense invention not unlike the “fantastic arrangements” and “shimmering sequences” that Debussy’s fellow student remembers hearing long long ago in the classroom. Next morning, already feeling worn out, not looking forward to a dreary errand, I get into my trusty four-wheeled stereo, put on the same CD (Piano Works, Vol. V) to a surefire energy source, Tarantelle styrienne (later simplified to Danse), some of the most exhilarating piano music ever written, and I’m revived in an instant, riding high, and what was a chore has become a mission.

Something Amusingly Else

Of course Debussy has much more to offer than morning euphoria and instant energy. Take one of the best-known and most-played of his compositions, Clair de lune, which begins in a state of tender hesitant beauty, builds to an emotional summit, and goes down like a sunset. It’s one thing to hear Ciccolini play it, and something amusingly else to see Spencer Tracy at the keyboard in Without Love, one of the lesser-known movies he made with Katherine Hepburn. If it had been Hepburn swooning elegantly over the keys, no big deal, but that’s Spencer Tracy tucking in the belt of his bath robe as he sits down to play. No ceremony, no airs, the most unceremonious of actors is making beautiful music as Hepburn listens transfixed on the stairs, in her bathrobe, about to dissolve into an amorous mist, just as my own mother did whenever my undemonstrative father played the same music.

The Anglophile

Debussy may not have spoken the language but, as Lockspeiser makes clear, he was thoroughly immersed in the culture of the British Isles, though it should be mentioned that Debussy was very much under the influence of France’s favorite American, Edgar Allan Poe, to the point of planning but never finishing operas based on The Devil in the Belfry and The Fall of the House of Usher. (In November 2009 Opéra Français de New York presented the enhanced remains.) Besides enjoying idylls in Jersey and Eastbourne with Emma Bardac, whom he married in 1908, Debussy hired an English governess for his daughter and was a steadfast admirer of English art (Turner, Whistler, the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris, Walter Crane, Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Rackham), poetry (Keats, Shelley, Swinburne), literature (J.M. Barrie, Oscar Wilde, Dickens, and above all Shakespeare). The original role of Mélisande in his opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, belonged to Mary Garden, a Scottish soprano with a voice he had “secretly imagined — full of a sinking tenderness” who sang “with such artistry” as he “would never have believed possible.” Perhaps the most whimsical indication of the extent of his devotion to things English is in Volume Two of the Preludes, the one titled Hommage to S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C. [Perpetual President-Member Pickwick Club]. He also composed preludes based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Peter Pan.

“Ever Higher”

“Anywhere out of the world” was Debussy’s half-facetious response to one of the questions (“Where would you most like to live?”) on a printed questionnaire from February 1889 included as an appendix in the first volume of Lockspeiser’s biography. Among Debussy’s more earthly enjoyments: reading “while smoking complex cigars” (les tabacs compliqués), the color violet; Russian cooking; and coffee. His favorite fictional hero and heroine were Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Rosalind. His idea of happiness: “to love,” his motto “Ever higher.”

Twice married, Debussy had numerous affairs. Green-eyed Gabrielle Dupont, who can be seen in all her statuesque glory among the photographs in Lockspeiser’s book, attempted suicide when their ten-year relationship ended, and his first wife shot herself on the Place du Concorde after a letter from Debussy telling her that the marriage was over (she survived). That’s the composer’s 11-year-old daughter, Claude-Emma (Chouchou), sharing a picnic on the grass with her straw-hatted father in the photograph on the cover of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli’s 1988 recording of the Preludes. You can imagine something of the father-daughter relationship if you to go to “Debussy plays Debussy” on YouTube and listen as Debussy plays “Golliwog’s Cake-Walk,” from the Childrens Corner suite he wrote for Chouchou, whose smiles, he told a friend, “helped him overcome periods of black depression.” In a letter home, he writes of how sad he is “not to hear your songs and your laughter and all that noise which sometimes makes you an unbearable little person.” Before going into surgery in 1915, he tells his wife that she and Chouchou “are the only two beings who should prevent me from disappearing altogether.”

The Last Word

For Lockspeiser, Debussy’s child provides the most reliable eyewitness account of his death from cancer on March 25, 1918, as German artillery bombarded Paris. In a letter to her half-brother, she writes, “When I went back into the room Papa was sleeping and breathing regularly but in short breaths. He went on sleeping in this way until ten o’clock in the evening, and at this time, sweetly, angelically, he went to sleep for ever.” At the funeral, Chouchou did her best not to cry, for her distraught mother’s sake. “I saw him for the last time in that horrible box …. As I almost fell over I couldn’t kiss him.”

Chouchou herself had less than a year to live. Her death, during the diphteria epidemic, was thought to be due to an erroneous diagnosis.

Edward Lockspeiser’s biography was an invaluable resource that would not have been available but for the Princeton Public Library, which also had the Claudio Abbado Wiener Philarmonic recording of Pelléas et Mélisande, a hypnotic experience when listened to with headphones between midnight and three in the morning. I also consulted Debussy On Music, which I found at last year’s Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale. 


August 8, 2012

The Scheides’ Concert of Orchestral Music Is a Musical Gift to the Princeton Community

Musical events in Princeton always draw a good crowd. Free musical evenings are guaranteed to draw an even better crowd, and such was the case last Tuesday night when a free concert of British string orchestral music was presented in Princeton University Chapel. Announced as a “gift to the Princeton community from Bill and Judith Scheide,” this concert featured late 19th and early 20th-century music suitable for the venue in which it was performed.

The University Chapel is not often used for orchestral music, and while lush choral passages often get lost in the vast Gothic arches, it was remarkable how clean the instrumental sound was. Conductor Mark Laycock, leading a chamber orchestra of local professionals, clearly had a sense of how to work the acoustics so that even the lightest pizzicato from the double basses could be heard in the back of the hall.

The repertoire selected by Mr. Laycock was among the more substantial from British orchestral composers, full of expansive lines and broad orchestral strokes. There was no raised platform in the chapel for the performers, so only those in the front or on the aisles could see well; for many in the audience this was music which would wash over them, however no details were lost in the process. Mr. Laycock conducted with sweeping gestures to bring out grandeur, especially in the two pieces of Sir Edward Elgar. The instrumentalists, led by concertmistress Kimberly Fisher, played decisively from the start, with the hall providing plenty of acoustical room for the sound. String rhythms could clearly be heard, with clean scales in the Allegro of Elgar’s Opus 47 Introduction and Allegro. The Introduction included a lyrical viola solo, gracefully played by Sarah Sutton. Throughout the long first selection of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, the orchestral sound was well-nuanced, with the pizzicatti especially well heard.

English music of this period is known for its tunefulness, heard in this performance in the music of Peter Warlock and Gustav Holst. In a concert of all string music, tunes can make a difference, and this ensemble was successful in finding the lilt and supple flow in Warlock’s Serenade. Holst’s music can be chipper as well as melodic, and the Air from his Brook Green Suite in particular captured the lute character of 16th-century English music. John Ireland’s Minuet from A Downland Suite moved the evening into a lighter mood, with the orchestra capturing an English countryside feel through graceful upbeats and accents and clean pizzicatti from the double basses. This piece ended with particular charm as the music delicately faded away. The orchestra found a different musical character in Gerald Finzi’s Romance, a piece full of suspensions and contrasts. Mr. Laycock worked to pull the sound through the melancholy yet peaceful ebb and flow of the piece, with Ms. Fisher’s violin solo blending well with the rest of the ensemble.

Mr. Laycock closed the concert with what may have been the most familiar piece — Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. By moving part of the orchestra back in the chancel, Mr. Laycock was able to create a fuller sound, with the especially rich tune in the lower strings. The second orchestra back by the altar was able to achieve an echo effect, contrasted by melodic solos from Ms. Fisher, Ms. Sutton, and cellist Adrian Daurov.

This concert was the Scheides’ gift to the Princeton community, and informality was the word for the evening. People came in a wide variety of summer dress, at times meditating on the music and at times browsing through electronic devices to read to a rich musical accompaniment. Despite this concert being the tail-end of a busy summer musical season in Princeton, the chapel was full, and the evening’s experience included some of the best orchestral playing heard all year in the area.


Summer Theater Season Finale Presents Powerful, Wistful Comedy; Romance in the Catskills Struggles to Survive in “The American Plan”

COURTSHIP AND CONFLICT: Lili (Sarah Paton) and Nick (Andrew Massey) meet and fall in love — it’s 1960, summertime, a lake in the Catskills — but that’s just the beginning of their problems in Princeton Summer Theater’s season finale, Richard Greenberg’s melancholy comedy “The American Plan,” playing at The Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus through August 12.

In the closing moments of Princeton Summer Theater’s (PST) moving, captivating production of The American Plan, Lili and Nick look back on a romantic relationship that could have been and recall the words of a lullaby that Lili’s mother Eva used to sing: “Happiness exists, but it’s for other people.”

Those words capture the tone of this play and the worldview that it presents. Under the intelligent, inspired direction of Daniel Rattner, The American Plan (1990) by Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, 2003) provides a multi-layered, beautifully designed finale to Princeton Summer Theater’s outstanding 2012 season.

Set in 1960 at a summer house in the Catskills, The American Plan takes place in a world delicately balanced between hopes and fears of past and future. Her transistor radio plays Bobby Darin’s “Somewhere Beyond the Sea,” as the troubled, 20-year-old Lili (Sarah Paton) dreams of a prince who will come to carry her away from her humdrum, privileged life and her domineering mother.

Right on schedule, as the lights rise on the opening scene, Nick (Andrew Massey), handsome WASP interloper in this Jewish enclave, looking “like nothing ever happened to you,” emerges from the lake where he has been swimming and greets Lili. She is reading on the patio of their house across the lake from the Catskills resort where Nick is staying. A writer and aspiring architect who dreams of creating a new city, Nick describes to Lili “the American Plan” (a hotel package deal that includes three meals a day, but in Nick’s mind and in the author’s title of the play, a metaphor for a disturbed, self-indulgent slice of mid-20th century American society): “What Americans live like that? What Americans eat like this? The breakfasts and the lunches and the dinners and the coffees and the teas and the snacks and the hardly-any-exercise in-between…”

All five characters in this play are outcasts, misfits in a world on the cusp of change. Lili’s mother Eva (Maeve Brady), a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, a wealthy widow with her Central Park West apartment and her summer house in the Catskills, looks down on the Jewish resort community and views life with pessimism and suspicion. “The world has a wish for you,” she warns her daughter, “and it’s never good.” Two supporting characters, Olivia (Miyuki Miyagi), Eva and Lili’s maid and caretaker, and Gil (Evan Thompson), who suddenly appears in the second of two acts, are also set apart from the mainstream of society.

As the plot advances, Nick and Lili’s relationship develops, and complications proliferate. Lili is deceitful, bitter and acerbic, edgy and unstable, subject to panic attacks, desperate to find romance and escape from her mother’s tyrannical control, yet inextricably attached and dependent. Nick also hides truths about his life, which Eva relentlessly proceeds to uncover. This prince is not exactly what he first appears to be.

The chemistry between Lili and Nick is strong, the love is apparent, the romance and the possibilities for happiness are rich and promising. But the vicissitudes of life, the workings of the human psyche and well-intentioned (or not) interventions by Eva and others ensure that this is not to be the fairy tale story that Lili and Nick envision.

PST’s polished, intelligent production brings out the nuances in these complex relationships. Mr. Rattner’s pacing moves the plot along effectively, and slows down, particularly as the lights linger at the end of each scene, to engage the audience in the troubled thoughts and yearnings of these struggling characters. Jeffrey Van Velsor’s set and Alex Mannix’s delicate, evocative lighting create the mood of this world with its pensive inhabitants and its mix of romance and melancholy.

The set — wicker patio furniture, a weathered Adirondack chair, greying boards (like a wharf, or the side of a beach house) for the backdrop — reinforces the wistful mood of the play. A clever, creative transformation for the final scene moves to Eva and Lili’s dark, well-appointed New York apartment ten years later, with political protests raging outside; on the back wall a large flag made of faded jeans stitched together signifies a new phase in the history of the country and in the lives of the play’s protagonists. Production values here and throughout the PST season have been thoroughly professional, first-rate.

As the romantic couple at the play’s core, Ms. Paton and Mr. Massey are appealing and strikingly credible. Both young actors are experienced members of the PST Company, have starred in previous shows this summer, and display significant versatility here in progressing through the many mood shifts of these two characters. From the mannerisms of the attitudinal, sharp-tongued girl of the opening scenes to the more serious and mature adult of the later scenes, Ms. Paton’s Lili grows increasingly convincing and sympathetic. Mr. Massey is charming and conflicted — in character and believable from start to finish. It is not hard to see why these two would quickly fall in love with each other, and why that passionate attachment would cause endless problems for each.

Ms. Brady’s domineering maternal presence as Eva is a strong characterization, unquestionably capable of commanding the stage and the other figures in the play — another credible portrayal despite what seems like a possibly excessive fifty-year age stretch. Ms. Brady’s German accent is effective, but occasionally needs to be clearer in order to communicate this character’s many clever and caustic observations.

Ms. Miyagi and Mr. Thompson provide intelligent, skillful support, detailed and on target in their three-dimensional character delineations.

As director of this production and artistic director of Princeton Summer Theater 2012, Daniel Rattner observes in his program note, “The American Plan is a fitting end to our season because it, somewhat literally, explores what happens at summer’s end — when we are forced to leave a time that feels idle and promising and return to the real world, with its … constant complications.” Fitting, indeed, with its elegiac, end-of-summer shadows and its thought-provoking studies in character and relationships — it’s a worthy conclusion to a rewarding, diverse, and impressively successful 2012 season.


August 1, 2012

Scheide’s “Midsummer Celebration” Showcases New Jersey’s Operatic Singers and Musicians

William and Judith Scheide could spend their summers in the cool environs of New England, as many Princetonians do, escaping the New Jersey heat. Instead the Scheides have not only chosen to remain in the humidity with the rest of us but also to make the summer months more musically enjoyable. For the past four years, the Scheides have sponsored a concert taking advantage of the singers and instrumentalists in town performing with other ensembles. This past Thursday night, members of Opera New Jersey’s summer roster were joined by the New Jersey Symphony and led by conductor Mark Laycock in a rousing performance of 19th-century powerhouse opera arias, all made possible by the Scheides.

Opera New Jersey strutted out some of its best soloists from this summer’s productions for the concert of operatic excerpts at Richardson Auditorium, with soprano Erica Strauss, tenor Rafael Dávila and bass Young-Bok Kim delving into the Golden Age of German and Italian Romantic opera. Focusing primarily on the works of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, this “Midsummer Celebration” easily achieved its goal of bringing the audience to its feet with brass, percussion, and rich orchestration, not to mention great singing.

Conductor Mark Laycock acknowledged the importance of the chorus in 19th-century opera by starting the concert with a Wagnerian bang in a chorus from Tannhäuser. Opera New Jersey compiled a choral ensemble of the company’s “emerging artists” and local professionals who easily captured the sweep and grandeur of “Freudig begrüssen wir die edle Halle,” Tannhäuser’s “Entrance of the Guests.” This being Wagner, brass played a large role, beginning with clean trumpets from an offstage balcony.

Mr. Laycock alternated Wagner with Verdi in programming the evening, but given the musical weight of both composers, there was little difference in the hefty orchestration and demanding vocal requirements among the operatic excerpts. The chorus reined in its sound a bit as the concert progressed, with the sectional basses and altos coming across as the most unified. In the opening Verdi selection from Otello, four character soloists sang from the chorus, most notably bass-baritone John Arnold, with all singers clearly feeling free to unleash a full magnitude of sound.

Mr. Dávila, heard with Opera New Jersey this past summer in Il Trovatore, showed his more lyrical side in his duet with Ms. Strauss — Verdi’s “Love Duet,” also from Otello. Although these two singers could have demonstrated more chemistry and sparks between each other, both brought out the sweetness of the duet, with Ms. Strauss especially floating her sound in the top register. The singers were well complemented by cellist Stephen Fang’s graceful solo.

Mr. Laycock also ventured into the very familiar repertoire, with Wagner’s “Prelude to Act III” of Lohengrin, a selection from Wagner’s Götterdammerung and Verdi’s “Triumphal March” from Aida. A dark and rich English horn, played by Andrew Adelson and subtly accompanied by timpani marked the start of the Wagner excerpt, combined with a lean extended sectional cello solo. Mr. Laycock drew out well the “sunrise” of the “Dawn,” aided by chipper wind solos. The familiar triumphal tune was played with nuance by the brass, and a bit of Verdian gypsy could easily be heard from the winds.

Arrigo Boito’s “Prologue in Heaven” from Mefistofele fit into the theme of the evening with Boito’s role as librettist for some of Verdi’s operas. Although the orchestral “Prelude” was a bit staid, Young-Bok Kim got things rolling as Mefistofele, exuding the confidence of the part and a menacing vocal swagger. Mr. Kim clearly has no trouble commanding a stage in ominous and intimidating roles, and brought the audience right into his world. Mr. Kim was joined in this extended scene by the adult chorus as well as a children’s chorus representing the “Cherubini.” Prepared by Fred Meads and singing from the balcony, the children’s chorus easily handled some very quick “patter” passages of words and held their own well in a section of cross-metered music with the orchestra and other chorus.

Thanks to the generosity of the Scheides, the Princeton musical summer season has been extended right to the edge of July, and the established organizations of Opera New Jersey and New Jersey Symphony, as well as the two choruses, were able to collaborate to create something entirely new and thoroughly enjoyable to the audience. The opportunity to provide more work to musicians in the summer also made this concert more relevant to the community and strengthened Princeton’s role in the New Jersey artistic scene.


July 25, 2012

Vienna Piano Trio Presents Trio of Works; From Two Viennese and A French Master

Throughout music history, the city of Vienna has been a hot spot for musical performance, with Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert among its masters. Two centuries later, Vienna is still exporting great music, and a sample came to Richardson Auditorium last Wednesday night as part of the Princeton University Summer Concert series. The Vienna Piano Trio performed three works for piano, violin, and cello, showing precision and a solid command of 18th and 19th century repertoire.

The other ensembles heard in the Summer Concert series this year have maintained blended repertoires of traditional and contemporary (event, avant-garde) music, but the Vienna Piano Trio is firmly rooted in the classics. Violinist Wolfgang Redik, cellist Matthias Gredler, and pianist Stefan Mendl have compiled a discography of the great masters of chamber music, including the piano trios of Franz Josef Haydn.

The Vienna Trio’s performance of Haydn’s Piano Trio in A Major was clean from the outset, beginning with exacting chords from the piano. Mr. Mendl showed a very light touch on the keyboard, with even fingering on running passages and a subtle left hand. Mr. Mendl demonstrated a great deal of character in his piano accompaniment, complementing a sweet violin sound from Mr. Redik. Haydn’s trio included stylistic musical teasing, which was well executed by the Vienna ensemble.

Throughout the three movements, the strength of Mr. Mendl remained the evenness of his hands, which enabled a concise and well-timed dialog between piano and violin. Mr. Gredler drew a rich sound from the lower register of the cello, especially in the darker second movement. The Vienna Trio also demonstrated their quick playing in the third movement as they brought the Haydn work to a fast and furious close.

The Viennese work paired with the Haydn Trio was Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major, composed less than a year before the composer’s death. Despite Schubert’s physical suffering at the time, his late works, including this trio, were infused with expressive melodies and a bit of playfulness. The Vienna Trio brought out well the lyrical second subject of the first movement, allowing the silences between musical thoughts to become a bit longer each time. The second movement, Andante, resembled a typically Schubertian lieder for cello and piano, with Mr. Gredler deriving the most from the phrases, evenly accompanied by Mr. Mendl. The full ensemble sound and musical drama showed Beethoven’s presence in the same city (he died shortly before Schubert began work on this trio) and the Vienna ensemble illuminated the saucy refrain of the closing Rondo with its especially Beethoven-esque dash to the finish.

French musical impressionist Maurice Ravel is not a composer one normally associates with Vienna, but he did travel to the city many times, and had a great regard for Viennese musical heritage. From this tradition Ravel may have borrowed the piano trio form, but his Piano Trio in A Minor was colored by a far darker influence than light-hearted Viennese court life. From the time of this trio’s beginnings in 1913 to its premiere in 1915, France moved from the joie de vivre of the early 20th century to immersion in World War I. Ravel was forced to rush completion of this trio in order to enlist in the military, and the four movements of this work are almost a pastiche of world-wide musical influence.

In this work, Ravel took an old form and added a new harmonic twist, and the Vienna Trio brought out well all the nuances and impressionistic musical tricks. Mr. Mendl began the work with a very liquid piano character, soon joined by unison violin and cello. Mr. Gredler’s cello part showed more range than the other two works, with long melodic lines in both stringed instruments and more use of vibrato. An elegant dialog between the violin and cello smoothed out the Basque irregular meter of the movement.

The second movement, Pantoum, drew its structure from Malaysian poetry, with a great deal of rise and fall in the music and jagged rhythms. This movement was more demanding of the players, and the Vienna Trio moved smoothly into the third movement Passacaille. Mr. Mendl well intoned the funeral march theme in the lowest register of the piano, and the three instruments built intensity well as the movement arched and returned to its funereal roots from the keyboard.

In all three of these works (as well as the Schumann excerpt which served as an encore), the Vienna Piano Trio paid tribute to the precision of the Classical era, while stretching their range into Ravel’s muted instrumental colors. This was clearly an ensemble rooted in the great traditions of the history of music.


July 18, 2012

Princeton University Summer Concerts Presents The Chiara String Quartet

The Princeton University Summer Concerts series continued its popular season last week with a performance by the Chiara String Quartet, which presented a concise and well-balanced program to a very appreciative audience. These free summer chamber concerts have become the thing to do on hot summer nights in Princeton, and the audience at Richardson Auditorium last Monday night was not disappointed by the Chiara Quartet’s level of play or choice of repertoire. The quartet, comprised of violinists Rebecca Fischer and Julie Hye-Yung Yoon, violist Jonah Sirota, and cellist Gregory Beaver, presented two chamber standards and a work by a composer with whom they have had a long association.

Franz Josef Haydn’s string quartets were the model for the genre during the 18th and a good part of the 19th centuries. His Opus 76 was a courtly set of quartets, and the fifth of this set was particularly joyful. Led by first violinist Ms. Fischer, the first movement was a refreshing start to the Chiara’s concert. Ms. Fischer drew out the phrase cadences especially well, with Mr. Beaver playing with a rich and mellow sound when the cello had long solo passages.

Throughout the four-movement work, the Chiara String Quartet demonstrated excellent communication with one another, building simultaneous dynamic swells and crescendi. Mr. Beaver was well in control in the third movement Menuetto, providing a solid foundation to the ensemble sound. The final Presto was high-spirited, with a quick melody traded between violin and cello, and precision among the players as the work came to a close.

Like the Chiara Quartet, Massachusetts-born composer Jefferson Friedman is young, and his String Quartet No. 2 had an energetic exuberance and contemporary intricacy about it. The Chiara Quartet has a long-standing partnership with Mr. Friedman (he has written three quartets for them) and clearly had his second String Quartet well in hand. From the outset the four instruments maintained simultaneous intensity through the very rhythmic and canonic movement. Mr. Friedman’s work had a great deal of motion, interspersed with haunting and expressive solos. The three movements had no descriptive subtitles, but were different in character, with the Chiara ensemble bringing out well the stylistic variety. In the hymn-like second movement, Mr. Friedman created a soothing texture with two violins and viola against a subtle cello accompaniment, and the ensemble showed its expertise in working together with collective silences and reaching points of rest together. The third movement contained an unusual texture, with the viola being the only instrument bowed against sharp pizzicatti from the other players. The Chiara Quartet maintained focus and intensity well as this difficult yet appealing work drew to a close.

The quartet showed its full strength in Brahms’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, the last of the composer’s three quartets. Brahms composed many of his violin works for a specific performer, as evidenced by the lyrical song played by first violinist Ms. Fischer in the second movement. The Chiara ensemble played this piece from memory, which enabled the players to fully communicate with one another unencumbered by music stands. The players seemed to lean in more, playing with ease and sensitivity, and the audience was definitely intrigued by how much more one can see in a performer when they are playing from memory.

The Chiara players could feel instinctively when to move from resting point into motion, especially in a second movement which could easily have come from Brahms’s sacred repertoire. The players brought out well the gypsy-like syncopation in the third movement Agitato, with the muted first violin matching the dark color of the viola. The charming Viennese fourth movement which closed the work reminded the audience of the chamber roots of the string quartet genre and sent the audience off into the summer night feeling as though they had been to a delightful and intimate soirée.


July 12, 2012

Is This Madness? Or Just Emotional and Psychological Abuse? Princeton Summer Theater Stages Classic Thriller “Gaslight”

MARITAL MANIPULATIONS: Manningham (Evan Thompson) subtly deceives his wife (Sarah Paton) into thinking she is going insane, in Princeton Summer Theater’s production of Patrick Hamilton’s “Gaslight” (1938), playing at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus through July 15.

A creative work whose title becomes a part of the common cultural vocabulary must strike a resonant chord in our social and psychological worlds, and the indomitable Princeton Summer Theater’s (PST) polished, intelligent production of Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 Gaslight presents a vibrant case in point. Our society has recently been struggling to come to terms with the complex psychological ramifications and destructive effects of bullying. “Gaslighting” — a power play which involves manipulating the victim into doubting his or her memory and perceptions — is certainly one of the most insidious forms of that kind of psychological abuse. Unsurprisingly, despite a certain quaint predictability and Victorian-style domestic familiarity, this classic melodrama maintains its power to engage and intrigue audiences almost 75 years after its original production.

Most famous is its 1944 movie version directed by George Cukor and starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten and an 18-year-old Angela Lansbury in her screen debut, Gaslight, set in London in the 1880s, is the story of a villainous husband and his calculating emotional and psychological torture of his wife, as he drives her to the brink of insanity.

Under the guise of the most caring and kindly paternalism in this traditional Victorian upper-middle class household, he deceives her into believing that she is misplacing valuable objects, neglecting her responsibilities as dutiful wife, and gradually losing her mind in forgetfulness. One of his ruses that make his wife question her senses and sanity is his clandestine raising and lowering of the gas lamps that give the play its title and light the couple’s Victorian living room. The Victorian world and male-dominated marriages of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) come to mind, as does the victimized wife consigned to a 1860s mental institution in Emily Mann’s Mrs. Packard (2007).

The PST cast of five principals, all undergraduates or recent college graduates, under the direction of Princeton English and theater professor R.N. Sandberg, is excellent — credible and engaging in making significant character stretches to portray this curious assemblage of characters from a distant world.

In the central Ingrid Bergman role of the beleaguered wife Bella, Sarah Paton is convincing and sympathetic. She portrays a fluctuating fragility that shifts rapidly and credibly from happiness in response to her husband’s feigned affections to desperation and manic hysteria in the face of her fears and desperation in confronting what she is led to believe is her declining mental state. This overly dependent, neurotic stereotype of a Victorian wife is certainly a ripe subject for feminist scrutiny, as is her misogynist husband, though suspense and melodrama are Mr. Hamilton’s priorities rather than social commentary here.

Evan Thompson as Jack Manningham takes on the villain’s role with spirit and poise. His proud posture, thinly veiled insincerity, roguish demeanor, sexist commentary, and inappropriately suggestive overtures to the maid (Ariel Sibert) lucidly reveal his duplicity to the audience, if not to his wife, early on in the play. The audience, realizing Jack’s machinations, then identifying with Bella as she first spirals into distress and fear, then gradually begins to realize her husband’s treachery, enjoy watching as husband and wife match wits in mortal combat.

Ms. Sibert’s impertinent Nancy exudes the brazen spirit and style of the saucy, lascivious maid, and Jack’s flirtations with her become part of his psychological abuse of his wife, as the two women compete for his attentions.

As the elderly house servant Elizabeth, Maeve Brady makes an impressive stretch in age and creates a memorable character, watching closely the suspicious actions of her master and the alarming behavior of her mistress and helping in the end to resolve the tangled plot. Andrew Massey’s avuncular, witty, and determined detective contributes irony and dark humor to the proceedings, eventually winning Bella’s trust and allegiance in opposing the treacherous husband and sorting out his complex schemes and actions. Mr. Massey creates a quirky, believable, and likeable three-dimensional character.

Jeffrey Van Velsor, professional local set designer, in collaboration with talented lighting designer Alex Mannix, has successfully created the Manningham’s living room and this ponderous world of Victorian domestic life. In sharp, welcome contrast to the multiple settings of the 1944 movie version, the audience here stays focused in the single, darkly paneled, increasingly claustrophobic room. As the plot develops throughout the evening, the single setting intensifies the suspense and fear that the audience shares with the panicked Bella. “Gaslight” sconces on the wall further enhance the atmosphere and admirably serve the plot.

Mr. Sandberg has directed with skill and careful attention to detail. The action, even the rather long first-act exposition and set-up, moves swiftly, drawing the audience into this eerie world of intrigue and drama. The performers are well rehearsed and communicate the complexities of this tale with clarity and conviction. Ben Schaffer’s expert technical direction and period costuming by Julia Bumke and Ms. Sibert are also on-target and effective.

In commenting on Gaslight, Mr. Hamilton, who wrote several popular psychological dramas and novels in the first half of the twentieth century, once remarked, “It has a sort of genuineness in its very bogusness — it is sincere good fun theater.” Princeton Summer Theater makes the most here of Mr. Hamilton’s fascination with a rich psychological struggle and his fine sensitivity to the playwright’s art of keeping audiences on the edges of their seats.


Opera New Jersey’s Tenth Anniversary Is Celebrated With Verdi’s “Il Trovatore”

In the ten years since Opera New Jersey’s founding, the company has grown from a vehicle for student performance to a mentoring program incorporated into high quality operatic production. In these tough economic times, Opera New Jersey has managed to expand in quality if not quantity (this season sees a marked increase in number of productions and venues) while somehow keeping the wolves away from the door. Like its sister summer musical celebration The Princeton Festival, Opera New Jersey is branching out into educational initiatives, as well as venues in other parts of the state, but its core programming remains operatic production at McCarter Theatre — and nothing says opera more than Giuseppe Verdi.

Opera New Jersey opened its 10th anniversary season with Il Trovatore, one of Verdi’s most successful operas and one which can pack audiences in. Just about three hours long and cast for little more than a handful of principals, Il Trovatore is not for the faint-hearted opera company, but Opera New Jersey cast its net to the highest musical levels to find singers who could stand up to the demanding and dramatic score.

Refreshing to see onstage again was baritone Young-Bok Kim, who has performed with Opera New Jersey in past seasons. Mr. Kim remains a phenomenal singer and is spreading his wings a bit with other companies in the country. As the officer Ferrando, Mr. Kim sang solidly with a voice full of color, ringing out the lyricism of the narrative “Di due figli vivea padre beato” aria and singing cleanly against the orchestra’s gypsy rhythms.

Verdi incorporated many different styles of music into this opera to match the characters, and the heroine Leonora was well accompanied by strings in her opening scene. Joined onstage by her confidante Ines (sung by JoAna Rusche), soprano Erica Strauss brought a tremendous amount of vocal stamina to the role of Leonora, soaring with ease into the coloratura stratosphere for which Verdi is known. Ms. Rusche is a member of Opera New Jersey’s “Emerging Artists Program,” yet she impressively complemented the voice of Ms. Strauss, completing her phrasing and vocal color as the two singers carried on a musical dialogue. Ms. Strauss demonstrated great control in the cavatina and cabaletta of her opening scene (Verdi was experimenting with forms other than arias) handling the quick coloratura of the show-stopping cabaletta well. Particularly as the opera progressed into more dramatic and theatrical territory, Ms. Strauss proved that she is a soprano who can sing forever, never losing strength, even as Verdi saved the most difficult singing for the final scene.

Leonora’s beloved Manrico does appear, lightly accompanied by harp to replicate his lute (he is the trovatore, or troubadour of the title), and tenor Rafael Dávila brought passion and vocal strength to the role. Whatever vocal overpowering he may have started with quickly dissipated as the opera went along (it would be impossible to oversing for that amount of time) and Mr. Dávila found the “serenade” quality and innocent passion of his arias. Baritone Marco Nisticò provided a suave contrast in the Count di Luna, pouring his heart into “Per me ora fatale” as he also vies for the love of Leonora.

All of these vocal roles were demanding in stamina and energy, but the role of Azucena combined these requirements with the nastiness of a witch’s character. Mezzo-soprano Margaret Mezzacappa, fresh off of a performance of Beethoven’s equally demanding ninth symphony with The Philadelphia Orchestra, proved that McCarter’s Matthews Theatre was a great space for her — easily heard with just a shade of the demonic. Ms. Mezzacappa showed her lyrical and sensitive side with the trio with Leonora and Manrico in the final prison scene, singing expressively and with control while lying on the floor. Opera New Jersey cast some of its “Emerging Artists” in the smaller roles of this opera, and these young artists showed no difficulty keeping up with the very experienced principals.

Conductor Victor DeRenzi (artistic director of the Sarasota Opera) led the New Jersey Symphony in the orchestra pit, keeping a good balance between voices and instruments even as the opera went into its third hour (a tough haul for any orchestra). The orchestra opened the opera with clean brass and handled Verdi’s martial passages well. There were disconnects between singer and orchestra at times in rhythmic clarity, but when the two came together with precision the effect was very clean. The chorus of “Studio Artists of the Emerging Artists Program” provided solid singing in the well-known choruses from this opera.

Scenic Designer Boyd Ostroff (for the Syracuse Opera) made the most of simplicity, keeping a minimum of structure onstage with a backdrop of changing hues to depict the sky. There were many costume changes in this opera, and costume designer Howard Tsvi Kaplan emphasized the Spanish flavor of the storyline, incorporating a wide range of costumes for the principals and chorus members.

So where does Opera New Jersey go from here? With a wide array of musical offerings this summer (conducted and directed by a variety of people and accompanied by different ensembles) one wonders if the next decade will include an artistic director to pull these factions together with one resident artistic thread. Whatever the next decade brings, Opera New Jersey seems to be on solid footing going forward.


July 3, 2012

Princeton Festival Opera “Double Bill” Brings Humor, Drama to McCarter Stage

There are a number of ways an opera company can tie works together for a multi-opera production: by composer, plot theme, or perhaps as a vehicle for a particular singer. For its principal operatic production this season, The Princeton Festival joined two one-act operas together based on literary source material. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Francesca da Rimini draws its storyline from the early cantos of Dante’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. To round out the evening, Princeton Festival Artistic Director Richard Tang Yuk pulled Giacomo Puccini’s comic Gianni Schicchi away from its usual trilogy companions, exploiting the opera’s Dante source material to create an operatic evening reminding us all why we should behave. This “double bill” premiered June 23 and was repeated to a packed Matthews Theatre house this past Saturday afternoon.

Rachmaninoff composed his one-act setting of Francesca da Rimini at the turn of the 20th century, during Russia’s revolution. Rachmaninoff composed the crucial love duet between Francesca and Paolo first and then put the opera aside. During those ensuing years, he became acquainted with the music of Richard Wagner, which considerably influenced the orchestration of the opera. The rich orchestral fabric is a character unto itself, full of leitmotifs and dark sonorities. The action in this opera moved slowly at times, and The Princeton Festival Orchestra brought out every nuance (including some very creepy string effects). Rachmaninoff’s ability to mesmerize through orchestration was particularly evident when Paolo and Francesca finally give in to their desires over a lush 51-measure orchestral passage.

Princeton Festival stage director Steven LaCosse cleverly further embedded the Dante link into the evening by staging Dante (played by Samuel Green) at a writing desk as text from Divine Comedy floated above the stage. In this first of the double bill of operas, Dante and his companion, the ghost of Virgil (played by Nathaniel Olson) had the tough job of staying animated onstage for the entire opera, observing the action.

The most commanding voice of the evening belonged to baritone Stephen Gaertner, who sang both the roles of Malatesta in the Rachmaninoff and Gianni Schicchi in the subsequent Puccini opera. Mr. Gaertner is a veteran of the Metropolitan Opera, and had no trouble taking over the stage and convincing the audience of his torment. Soprano Caroline Worra, also a past Met singer, particularly excelled at floating the very high passages of her role, which was full of pathos at being married to the wrong man. Tenor Rolando Sanz handled well his role as the “other man,” somehow knowing that Francesca would eventually come around.

Key to the success of this opera, full of long orchestral interludes, was Graham Lustig’s choreography, setting four dances as other condemned souls. This production also created great opportunities for lighting and technology, fully exploited by set designer Mark Pirolo and lighting designer Norman Coates. With this teamwork, The Princeton Festival managed to balance a heavily symphonic work with visuals and vocals.

The operatic mood shifted considerably with Gianni Schicchi — a character referenced briefly in Dante’s Inferno, but rooted in 13th-century Florentine history. Puccini was highly successful when he set the story of Gianni Schicchi in the 16th-century commedia dell’arte tradition, with all the patter and vocal intricacy Italian audiences were used to hearing from the time of Rossini. Mr. Gaertner returned in the title role, still commanding the stage, but relaxed in intensity and clearly enjoying the comedic physicality as he elaborately scammed the rest of the family. Ms. Worra also returned as one of the related wives, showing a slightly different singing style than the first opera. By the time this opera premiered, audiences were likely expecting great melodies from Puccini, and one of the most peculiar moments in the opera is when amidst all the comedic patter comes one of the great melodic gems of opera. Soprano Jodi Burns delivered “O mio babbino caro” with a touch of innocence in a relaxed but quick tempo. A cast of underhanded and conniving relatives (performed animatedly all around) swarmed around Schicchi, also enjoying the chance to cut loose a bit (and have fun making a huge mess onstage). Soprano Jamie Van Eyck was particularly well made up and dressed to portray La Ciesca with elaborate snootiness.

The Princeton Festival operatic “double bill” was an impressive handful for the one evening alone, but combined with the more than thirty events the festival produced in three weeks no doubt made the Princeton community appreciate all the more how much work it was to put these two operas together and bring them to the stage. The Rachmaninoff opera in particular is rarely heard, and the two works together cemented the Festival’s reputation as a high-level opera presenter.


June 27, 2012

Princeton University Summer Concerts Opens Season With Daedalus String Quartet

Princeton University Summer Concerts kicked off its season in high gear last Tuesday night with a full house performance of the Daedalus String Quartet, a young and fresh chamber ensemble. The Daedalus players seem to work in all periods of music, with attention to particular current composers. Their concert Tuesday night at Richardson Auditorium focused on the turn of the 19th century and a composer whose work was commissioned for the ensemble.

Violinists Min-Young Kim and Matilda Kaul, violist Jessica Thompson and cellist Thomas Kraines showed great ability to carry on a musical dialog among instruments, starting with Mozart’s String Quartet No. 23 in F Major. Composed within two years of the composer’s death, this last of Mozart’s string quartets paid homage to Haydn but also showed the playfulness and humor of the Magic Flute.

The first movement, led by a sweet cello melody, featured delicate little phrases and sforzandi which were effectively brought out by the ensemble. Ms. Kim demonstrated very quick fingers in lively exchanges between the violin and cello. Mr. Kraines had a predominant role throughout the quartet, as evidenced in a long second movement melodic line. The Daedalus Quartet paid a great deal of attention to dynamic detail, which paid off in conveying the poignancy of the second movement and the clean parallel thirds between the violins. This work contained dynamic and musical suspense, showing the evolution of the genre that Beethoven would eventually claim as his own, but the four members of the Daedalus ensemble maintained a freshness to their sound, ending movements especially gracefully.

The Daedalus Quartet has long championed the music of American composers and recently premiered New York composer Joan Tower’s one-movement White Water. Like the water for which it was named, this work alternated between moving and staid music — tension and resolution. Ms. Thompson opened the work with a rich viola sound, as the other three instrumentalists employed languid glissandi up to a collective union. Intervals were exact, even when dissonant, and the ensemble drove repeated passages forward. As the pulsating chords moved together, it was clear to see why the Daedalus ensemble enjoyed performing this complex and intriguing work.

By the time Beethoven got a hold of the string quartet form, the genre had expanded to include a wide emotional range. Beethoven composed a number of his quartets in sets, one of which was Opus 59, dating from the height of the composer’s middle period. The Daedalus ensemble presented the first quartet of the Opus 59 set, with Mr. Kraines opening the piece with a rich cello sound. Especially after the fury of the Tower piece, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 7 in F Major seemed to be intimate and personal to the players. The quartet was marked by an unusually fast second movement, with the same rhythmic drive and motivic intensity as the composer’s Symphony No. 5. The Daedalus players kept this movement heading forward, ending with a bit of Beethoven humor.

In the introspective third movement, the players seemed to be in their own worlds, yet cohesively together. An elegant and extended violin I trill led to a joyous fourth movement full of sparkle as the two violins blended together. The Daedalus Quartet moved smoothly through a typical series of false endings leading to a final flourish to close the work.

Among the many string quartet ensembles that spring up all the time, the Daedalus String quartet in particular possesses a youthful and buoyant sound which would make any concert of theirs enjoyable. Princeton audiences have become accustomed to hearing elegant chamber music in the summer, and they were certainly not disappointed with this start to the summer concerts season.


Summer Theater Presents “A Little Night Music,” Farce with Depth; Sondheim Musical Masterpiece Opens Promising, Diverse Season

ANTICIPATION AND MEMORY: The flirtatious maid (Katrina Michaels, on left), the middle-aged lawyer Fredrik (Evan Thompson), and Fredrik’s very young wife Anne (Miyuki Miyagi) anticipate, with wildly disparate fears and desires, a romantic “Weekend in the Country” in the first act finale to Princeton Summer Theater’s production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s musical comedy, “A Little Night Music,” playing through July 1 at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus.

Stephen Sondheim acknowledged some conflict in his collaboration with the director Harold Prince on the original 1973 production of A Little Night Music: “Hal had described the show as being ‘whipped cream with knives,’ but he was more interested in the whipped cream and I was more interested in the knives.”

A Little Night Music, music and lyrics by Mr. Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, is more than replete with both “whipped cream” and “knives,” and Princeton Summer Theater’s current production, playing for just one more weekend at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus, delivers both the light and the dark, farce and tragedy, with unerring balance, taste, and sophistication.

Set in Sweden at the start of the twentieth century and based on Ingmar Bergman’s film Smiles of a Summer Night, Night Music ran for 601 performances in its original Broadway production, starring Glynis Johns, Len Cariou, and Hermione Gingold, became a movie in 1978 with Elizabeth Taylor, Mr. Cariou, and Ms. Gingold, then was successfully revived for 425 performances on Broadway three years ago with Catherine Zeta-Jones, later replaced by Bernadette Peters, and Angela Lansbury, later replaced by Elaine Stritch. It is, along with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Sweeney Todd (1979) and Into the Woods (1986), one of Mr. Sondheim’s most popular musicals, but in its depth, complexity of music, plot, theme, and subtle shifts of tone, it does pose formidable challenges for performers and audiences.

This youthful and ambitious Princeton Summer Theater Company — with seasoned professional director Adam Immerwahr at the helm, a dynamic and experienced cast of undergraduates, and recent college graduates from Princeton University and elsewhere, a first-rate, professionally-led design and technical crew, and a talented pit orchestra of nine — is up to the challenges and delivers a lucid, richly nuanced, thoroughly entertaining performance.

A Little Night Music is all about love, with themes and variations; perspectives from youth, middle age and old age; love eagerly anticipated, love fulfilled, and love remembered.

Three is the magic number here, as the show progresses in threes. The music is mostly in triple time — a sort of waltz musical — and the plot follows a series of no fewer than six shifting triangles of desire and romance. The music is complex. More typical of operetta than Broadway musical A Little Night Music, created in the style of late nineteenth century Viennese operettas, has been revived twice by the New York City Opera, in addition to its multiple productions in various venues throughout the world.

A Little Night Music is a tantalizing mix of bedroom farce and psychological tragedy, of bright romantic comedy and bitter reflection on the realities of male-female relationships, of true love and wistful regret, of human folly, and the wisdom of age and experience.

When Desiree (the luminous Sarah Anne Sillers), after a show-stopping rendition of “Send in the Clowns,” asks her middle-aged lover Fredrik (Evan Thompson), “Was that a farce?” and he replies “My fault I fear,” they seem to be referring to their problematic relationship. But she could just as well be asking about the whole show and its views of the human comedy of love and life.

The plot focuses on the story of Desiree, a touring actress, and her meeting after many years with her old flame Fredrik, who, intent on “renewing his unrenewable youth,” has recently married the lovely 18-year-old Anne (Miyuki Miyagi), who (somewhat implausibly) remains a virgin eleven months after their wedding.

The attraction between Fredrik and Desiree is rekindled. In their cleverly ironic duet “You Must Meet My Wife,” the two ex-lovers move quickly from uneasy propriety into a renewed romantic entanglement. But Desiree’s married current lover, the blustery, belligerent Count Carl-Magnus (Andrew Massey), is furious and seeks revenge on Fredrik.

Mr. Massey is not a singer, but renders the comical Carl-Magnus with convincing poise and swagger, as he talks and sings his way through his sexist “In Praise of Women” in act one, then clashes directly with Mr. Thompson’s Fredrik in act two for a cleverly choreographed, deftly timed, humorous confrontation in “It Would Have Been Wonderful.”

The two deceived wives, Carl-Magnus’s determinedly outspoken Charlotte (Maeve Brady), and Fredrik’s wife Anne, renew an old acquaintance and plot together to confound Desiree and end their husbands’ adulterous affairs. Their memorable duet “Every Day a Little Death,” offers an unsurprisingly cynical assessment of their husbands, their marriages and the state of love — “Men are stupid, men are vain,/Love’s disgusting, love’s insane,/A humiliating business!”

The plotting and the triangular liaisons multiply further as Fredrik’s impulsive nineteen-year-old son Henrik (Mark Watter), a scholarly seminary student and cello player, after a sexual dalliance with Petra (Katrina Michaels) the maid, finds himself desperately in love with his stepmother. Petra moves on to more satisfying fulfillment for her erotic passions in the form of the butler Frid (Patrick Morton). Ms. Michaels’ Petra expresses her colorful, forthright character and lusty outlook on life in a rousing solo, “The Miller’s Son.”

From beginning to end, Desiree’s daughter Fredrika (Emma Watt) and Desiree’s mother Madame Armfeldt (Carolyn Vasko), one too young and the other too old to be involved directly in the erotic dances of desire playing out on the stage before them, observe and comment on the proceedings. Ms. Vasko makes a sixty-year stretch in age to portray the elderly matron in her wheelchair, a sharp-tongued, commanding figure of strength and wisdom in the role made famous first by Ms. Gingold, then Ms. Lansbury and Ms. Stritch. Ms. Watt’s Fredrika is also memorable and consistently convincing as the inquisitive young granddaughter. Their relationship is intriguing and moving to witness.

In Ms. Vasko’s solo number, “Liaisons,” she may miss a few notes of the melody, but she forcefully delivers the meaning of the lyrics and the essence of character, as Madame Armfeldt nostalgically reminisces about her colorful past and laments over the declining standards in the art of love: “Where’s discretion of the heart, where’s passion in the art, where’s craft?”

Also providing perspective throughout the show is a quintet of waltzing singers, lovers — Mr. Lindquist, Mrs. Nordstrom, Mrs. Anderssen, Mr. Erlanson, Mrs. Segstrom (Sam Eggers, Abigail Sparrow, Emily Verla, Brian Hart, Jessica Anne Cox respectively) — who, as Mr. Immerwahr writes in his program note, “haunt the space, each with their own variations on the themes of the musical.” Like a late romantic Viennese version of an ancient Greek chorus, this polished ensemble observes, enhances the rapid transitions between scenes, and helps to establish the background and tone of the show.

The sturdy, functional set design by Jeffrey Van Velsor, with its Scandinavian elegance and simplicity, and complex, nuanced lighting by Alex Mannix serves this show admirably. Necessary furniture — bed, tables, chairs, desk — is wheeled on and off efficiently as the scene shifts from one residence to another and eventually to the Armfeldt country estate gardens, terrace, dining room, hallway, and bedroom. Three steps upstage lead to a wall of windows and French doors, behind which is the orchestra pit, lit in varying colors and degrees of clarity to suit the mood of the scene — all in all a striking visual effect. The close quarters and intimacy of the Hamilton Murray Theater lend themselves admirably to the delicacy and human scale of the drawing-room comedy enacted here.

Ben Schaffer brings an experienced, professional hand to the challenges of sound design and technical direction. Music director Kevin Laskey, another local professional and recent Princeton university graduate, leads the excellent nine-piece pit orchestra with poise and precision through the tangled and demanding Sondheim score.

Pulling this major production together, Mr. Immerwahr has cast the show with unerring intelligence and directed with distinction. The pace moves rapidly from start to finish. Every moment seems carefully, precisely rehearsed; with scenes shifting smoothly; diction, projection, and balance between actors and orchestra, between comic and serious, making all the witty shades of meaning and complex dialogue clear and accessible.

Costume designers Julia Bumke and Ariel Sibert have assembled a rich array of formal wear befitting the individual characters and helping to create the appropriate world of the Swedish upper class in 1900.

Madame Armfeldt promises her granddaughter at the start of the play that “the summer night smiles. Three times … at the follies of human beings, of course. The first smile smiles at the young, who know nothing. The second at the fools who know too little, like Desiree. And the third at the old who know too much — like me.” A Little Night Music, in this dazzling Princeton Summer Theater production, transcends the time and place in which it is set, transcends its farcical plot, transcends the difficulties of Mr. Sondheim’s sometimes cerebral music, and it transcends the discord of these characters’ lives. It delivers a striking commentary on the human condition, the frailty of love and life. Mr. Immerwahr and his richly talented company offer an exciting opening to PST’s diverse summer season. Don’t miss it.


June 20, 2012

The Princeton Festival Continues With Concordia Chamber Players Performance

Since the inauguration of The Princeton Festival five years ago, the Concordia Chamber Players has been an integral part of the musical activities. Currently based locally across the river at Trinity Church, in Solebury, Pa., the Players do not have far to travel for the festival, and many Princeton chamber music aficionados may be wondering why they do not hear more of this ensemble during the year. The Concordia Chamber Players no doubt increased their fan base after their Sunday concert at Miller Chapel as part of The Princeton Festival’s second week. Programming a very contemporary and technically difficult concert, the Players used the intimate space of Miller Chapel to show the audience close-up how challenging repertoire can bring an ensemble together.

Artistic director Michelle Djokic (who also plays cello in the ensemble) bracketed a light-hearted Milhaud piece with two works of extreme intensity. Estonian composer Arvo Pärt spent a portion of his career under Soviet musical repression, developing a style rooted in ancient chant and mysticism. His early music was banned for its 12-tone technique, but his late 1970s Fratres, scored for cello and piano, retains a mathematical structure in its medieval atmosphere. The one-movement work begins and ends with stark and intense passages from the cello, played with obvious passion and concentration by Ms. Djokic. Ms. Djokic was joined by pianist Rieko Aizawa, and the two musicians built the dynamics and energy of the piece together. Ms. Djokic’s solo line may not have been the most melodic, but she always played with direction and an aim to tell the story. Both instruments warmed up their sound as the piece moved along, and Ms. Djokic in particular demonstrated rich double stops toward the end of the work.

Arvo Pärt’s musical effects recur in Oliver Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, an eight-movement work which brought together Ms. Djokic, Ms. Aizawa, violinist Jesse Mills, and clarinetist Igor Begelman. Quartet for the End of Time has its roots in Messiaen’s incarceration in a prisoner-of-war camp in the early years of World War II. Among the other prisoners were a clarinetist, violinist, and cellist, and Messiaen’s Quartet was premiered on broken instruments to an audience of prisoners and guards. Although inspired by texts from the Book of Revelation, the work encapsulates World War II, much of which was still to come in 1941.

It is unusual for a chamber quartet to include sections for solo instruments, and the most notable in this piece was the third movement “Abyss for Birds,” scored for solo clarinet. Mr. Begelman played seemingly endless lines with ease and intensity, holding the audience in rapt attention with extended single notes which seemed to grow from nothing. In the movements in which all instruments played, the musicians showed their parts to be independent, yet fitting together. Mr. Mills seemed to be the leader in this piece, and the four musicians maintained solid communication, leading to precise rhythm in multiple unison passages throughout the work. This quartet had a driving and relentless intensity about it, and its difficulty was clear to the audience. Each instrument told a story at some point, with violin and cello playing movements accompanied by piano. The final movement in particular showcased the violin and piano ascending to the highest point of their registers in the appropriately titled “Praise to the immortality of Jesus.”

Darius Milhaud’s Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano broke the extreme intensity of the other works and it was brought to life with a spirited approach and exacting rhythm. A second movement duet between clarinet and violin brought out the French flavor of the piece, as Mr. Mills and Mr. Begelman complemented each other in graceful melodic sound. Throughout the piece, Ms. Aizawa provided solid, bell-like accompaniment in a work clearly influenced by early 20th-century jazz. The Milhaud work not only provided respite from two works born of repression and subjugation, but also showed how clean and accurate the Concordia Chamber Players have become in their history of working together.


June 13, 2012

Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra Opens Princeton Festival With Orchestral Majesty

Some artistic changes in performing ensembles take place with a great deal of fanfare, and others slip under the radar. The Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra has undergone a tremendous artistic change this year, not of their own doing, as Music Director Fernando Raucci temporarily withdrew from the organization for medical reasons. In any organization dealing with children, even a temporary loss of an influential figurehead is difficult, but the GPYO has rallied well to keep its musical family environment together. As the opening event of the Princeton Festival, the GPYO presented its spring concert this past weekend in Richardson Auditorium, showing that its student membership can be flexible under different types of leadership.

The GPYO has several ensembles within its structure representing different instrumentations, and the Concert Orchestra presented several works for strings. Conducted by Arvin Gopal, the Concert Orchestra used the string texture to find contrasting dynamics and colors within the rhythmic drive of three relatively contemporary pieces. Lower strings were a bit in short supply for this ensemble, but solo double bassist Peter Adams and cellists Rachel Asir and Pallavi Velagapudi made their presence known, especially in the contemporary arrangement of Jean Gabriel-Marie’s La Cinquantaine. Saturday night’s performance was a concert of great orchestral melodies, the first of which was head in the ‘Pavane’ of Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite for String Orchestra. By focusing on the rhythmic energy of these pieces, Dr. Gopal, conducting from memory, kept the mood of the music and closed the pieces particularly well.

High-quality music for wind bands is also hard to come by, but Adam Warshafsky, conductor of the GPYO Symphonic Winds, presented two effective late 20th-century pieces from living composers. Most impressive was Frank Ticheli’s Sanctuary, scored for concert band. Mr. Warshafsky brought out the majesty of the piece, aided by solos from oboist Melissa Maslyn and French horn player Anna Clifford.

Pianist Julian Edgren, featured in the GPYO Symphonic Orchestra’s performance of an excerpt from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, is a triple threat. Concurrently excelling at piano and violin, Edgren serves as Concertmaster for the Orchestra, and when not garnering awards and solos in music, wields a tennis racket for the Princeton High School varsity tennis team, with which he had a most impressive season this past year. Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto is one of the most challenging concerti in the repertory, and Symphony Orchestra conductor Kawika Kahalehoe certainly raised the bar for the players by programming its first movement. Mr. Edgren played the opening deliberately, building a crescendo leading to the Orchestra’s familiar rich string melodic entrance. With a fluid right hand, Mr. Edgren played with a great deal of feeling as the motion never stopped in the piano. Mr. Kahalehoe built orchestral dynamics to a decisive recapitulation of the opening theme, and the music maintained a nice flow, with fresh and youthful-sounding solos from some of the players.

Mr. Kahalehoe balanced the rest of the concert with familiar orchestral movements, including excerpts from Smetana, Borodin and Dvorak. Mr. Edgren rejoined the Orchestra as Concertmaster for these works, whose signature tunes were no doubt familiar to the audience. In the Borodin Polovtsian Dances, elegant solos were heard from oboist Heeyoung Park and English hornist Emma Coleman. Placing percussion on either side of the stage increased the rhythmic drive of the music, and these Dances moved right along.

More recognizable tunes were found in the fourth movement of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, especially from the horns as a section and clarinetist Ray Hou as a solo. The Orchestra demonstrated a great deal of precision in this movement, with graceful changes in dynamics amidst a lively tempo.

All of GPYO’s conductors Saturday night referenced the challenges of forging ahead this past year without their beloved Music Director, which made the performance not only a celebration of the student musicians (especially the graduating seniors) but also a congratulatory event for the organization as a whole for making it through the year. The players no doubt hope that Mr. Raucci returns soon, but in the meantime, the ensembles and music are in good hands.


May 23, 2012

Princeton Pro Musica Says Farewell to Ms. Slade With the Glories of Bach’s Mass in B Minor

Thirty-three years, or a third of a century, is a long time in any organization’s history. In her pre-concert remarks, Princeton Pro Musica Artistic Director Frances Fowler Slade commented that when she first wanted to start a chorus in Princeton she was told that “the last thing Princeton needed was another music ensemble.” On the contrary, in the past thirty years, the Princeton area has exploded with high-quality musical performances, and Princeton Pro Musica has grown right along with the musical community. After thirty-three years, Ms. Slade has decided to pass on the Pro Musica baton to a new choral visionary, and the chorus honored its founder on Sunday afternoon with a final performance under Ms. Slade’s direction. Choosing what could be the most towering choral work going, Ms. Slade, chorus, soloists and orchestra brought J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor to spirited life in Richardson Auditorium.

It surely was not easy to conduct the last concert of an ensemble that she has brought up like a child, but Ms. Slade was all business when it came to Bach’s intricate music. Tempi were quick with instrumental soloists finding nuance within the speed, and the chorus showed off three decades of choral discipline in its handling of coloratura runs. Movements which often get bogged down in over-romanticization moved right along, with the pathos and poignancy of the Biblical text conveyed by Baroque phrasing and tapered cadences.

Bach probably never heard all the components of this monumental work performed together as a single unit in his lifetime, but since the 19th-century revival of interest in Bach’s music and evolution of the choral society it has become a staple of choral performance, featuring up to five choral parts and four soloists, accompanied by Baroque orchestra. Soloists for Sunday’s performance included singers who had a history with Pro Musica, as well as newcomers. Soprano Mary Ellen Callahan had her hands full with a very quick “Laudamus Te,” but handled the tempo well without feeling rushed. Ms. Callahan was well matched with mezzo-soprano Alyson Harvey, with whom she shared two duets. These two singers were especially cognizant of each other in the “Et in unum Dominum” duet, as phrases flowed among singers and violins.

Ms. Harvey had two very tough arias, closing phrases particularly well in the mezzo aria from the “Gloria” section. Her phrasing never felt rushed, despite the difficulty of the passages, and she was elegantly accompanied by oboe d’amore player Caroline Park. Ms. Harvey was also key in closing the entire mass, singing a haunting yet crystalline “Agnus Dei” which summed up the imploring text leading up to this point and making the final chorus all the more glorious.

Tenor Robert Petillo brought a long history of Bach performance to this concert, drawing on his experience as a Bach passion evangelist to present the “Benedictus” text with the authority of a preacher, as the flute obbligato, gracefully played by Mary Schmidt, chased the vocal phrases. Mr. Petillo collaborated well with Ms. Callahan in a duet from the “Gloria,” with Mr. Petillo handling well some unusually quirky word placement. Bass Kevin Deas, who has been heard with Pro Musica numerous times, was as commanding as he has been in previous performances, maintaining especially well the long vocal lines of “Et in spiritum sanctum.” In this aria Mr. Deas was accompanied by two oboi d’amore (played by Ms. Park and Nathan Mills), which was a special treat since it is rare enough to hear one oboe d’amore, much less two. In a previous choral section, Ms. Slade wisely re-assigned a very difficult bass choral line to Mr. Deas, who presented the resurrection text with affirmation and conviction.

More than anything else, this performance was about Pro Musica and what Frances Slade has created over the past thirty-three years. The choral movements were full of the trademark Pro Musica blocks of sound, with especially clean runs in very quick tempi. As could be expected, the vocal musicians sang their hearts out, and the sections were always well-balanced. Most energetic among the choral movements was the “Et expecto” section which closed the “Symbolum Nicenum,” with the chorus flying through runs and three trumpets adding a joyous touch. As also should have been expected, all performers, and especially Ms. Slade, were clearly pleased with themselves as the ensemble celebrated its past and looked toward new beginnings.

 

May 16, 2012

Princeton Symphony Orchestra Celebrates Mother’s Day In Impressionistic Style

To close its 2011-12 season, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra presented musical roses — two light airy flowers and one sturdy plant with solid roots. It no doubt was very difficult to come indoors on Sunday afternoon, but those who chose to forego gardening for Ravel and Brahms were treated to a Mother’s Day gift of musical lightness and serenity.

Princeton Symphony Orchestra Music Director Rossen Milanov began the concert as if introducing the audience to a garden, surveying all the flowers in one visual gaze. Princeton composer Sarah Kirkland Snider began composing the one-movement Disquiet more than ten years ago, recently revising it for inclusion in this concert. Disquiet was lush, with many orchestral colors, and despite its title, began peacefully with almost imperceptible violins. Mr. Milanov effectively brought out crescendi and descrescendi, as the “agitated restlessness” of the piece was expressed by Jeremy Levine’s precise timpani. An elegant string quartet recurred throughout the piece against harp (played by Barbara Biggers) and clean articulation from the winds and a graceful English horn solo from Nicholas Masterson. Ms. Snider offered some unusual combinations of instruments in this piece, with the sonorities between violas and celli especially nice.

This piece was very audience-friendly because of its sonorities and the many different colors in the texture. The keynote work on the program, Maurice Ravel’s Concerto in G Major for Piano and Orchestra, was also an impressive palette of musical colors, illuminated with clarity by guest piano soloist Rieko Aizawa. Ms. Aizawa began the Ravel Concerto with a quick impressionistic start, playing with precision against jazz-influenced orchestration from the ensemble. Languid when she needed to be, Ms. Aizawa played with a great deal of upper arm strength, playfully adding sauciness for the final movement. Especially mesmerizing was Ms. Aizawa’s refined playing in the second movement Adagio, with an always-steady left hand and just a bit of quirkiness to the piano melody line.

Wind solos abounded in this high-spirited piece, with sweetness added from Mr. Masterson’s English horn and flutist Jayn Rosenfeld. The brass sections were able to provide jazzy effects, including some from principal trumpeter Jerry Bryant and a klezmer-type clarinet solo from Andrew Lamy. Ravel intended this concerto to be lighthearted, and all involved seemed to be having fun in this performance.

Where Ravel’s Concerto was like delicate instrumental lace, Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 in E minor was solid and substantial. The orchestra pared down for this work, showing Brahms’ Classical roots, and Mr. Milanov took a contained and stately approach to the first two movements. Particularly in the second movement Andante, the wind theme was presented nicely against pizzicato strings, with a very clean pair of horns, solo clarinet and bassoon adding to the texture. Mr. Milanov took an especially relaxed approach to this movement, building tension slowly.

The Princeton Symphony took off in the final two movements, conveying the most drama and musical bite. Mr. Milanov kept the theme of the third movement decisive, with a well-blended quartet of horns. Timpanist Jeremy Levine was kept very busy during the final movement providing a martial effect to contrast the lyrical winds and a very clean trio of trombones. Also adding to the clarity of sound were trumpeters Jerry Bryant and Paul Murphy. The closing fourth movement was also marked by a clean flute solo from Ms. Rosenfeld.

Closing Mr. Milanov’s first year as music director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra with these three works showed the ensemble’s commitment to three musical tenets: the best in orchestral repertoire, new and exciting soloists, and promoting the music of contemporary and local composers. The orchestra also promoted its coming season on Sunday afternoon, and no doubt will continue building its strength in these three areas.

May 9, 2012

Metropolitan Opera Star David Daniels Fills Richardson at University Concert

The counter-tenor superstar has been undergoing a relatively recent resurgence, yet much of the 17th and 18th century operas — which audiences are familiar with — were written with this voice in mind. Composers from Handel to Mozart and even Wagner wrote for the castrato voice, and in the Baroque era, male sopranos and altos were considered vocal icons. In recent decades, attention has turned back to the counter-tenor in the interest of authentic performance. Despite these roots in the 17th and 18th centuries, David Daniels’ performance last week at Richardson Auditorium journeyed way beyond the traditional Baroque counter-tenor repertory into the vocally rich music of the 19th century. Joined last Thursday night by renowned accompanist Martin Katz and dancers from the esteemed Mark Morris Dance Group, Mr. Daniels demonstrated his versatility and range to a sold-out house at Richardson.

Mr. Daniels has certainly performed his share of late 17th and early 18th century music; his recent performance in a Metropolitan Opera Baroque pastiche validated why he is considered a leading interpreter of this historical period. To open Thursday night’s performance, he stepped back a bit to the earliest days of opera. Jacopo Peri’s 1600 Euridice is one of the earliest surviving operas, employing a number of musical styles dramatically new to the times. The aria “Gioite al canto mio” exemplified the melodic style of singing prevalent in 16th-century Italy. Most likely accompanied by stringed instruments, this aria transferred well to piano, as collaborator Martin Katz maintained a light touch on the short quick scales leading to the sung part. Mr. Daniels brought a vocal richness to the text probably not heard in Peri’s era, but as he showed in this and the next few selections from the early Baroque, he is a master of this period. Mr. Daniels is an advocate of the “give and take” between accompanist and voice, and his performing relationship with Mr. Katz is solid enough to find the ebb and flow in each text. Mr. Daniels put particular weight behind the vocal line in Caccini’s “Amarilli, mia bella” (considered a signature song for counter-tenors) and showed breath control which in the Baroque era would become a staple of male singing.

In the four selections by early 20th-century French composer Reynaldo Hahn, Mr. Daniels soared in the upper registers as Mr. Katz provided light and airy accompaniment. This composer is not well-known, yet his music is equally as effectively impressionistic as the more renowned Debussy and Ravel; one could almost see Monet working on his paintings in the music.

This concert took the audience on a geographic, literary, and musical journey, and Mr. Daniels moved effortlessly into the Austrian music of Johannes Brahms. His vocal sparkle in the five selections of Brahms songs well matched the choreography of Mark Morris which provided a unique element to the performance. The Mark Morris Dance Group is known for a young, fresh, and innovative approach to dance and the six members of the troupe who performed Thursday night added simplicity and elegance, taking the concert beyond the words and music. In his songs, Brahms treated piano and voice equally, and the third song “Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen” revealed the most dramatic impact in the closing piano accompaniment.

The Mark Morris dancers returned for a very buoyant performance of three songs mostly revolving around spring and love by Hector Berlioz. “Le Spectre de la Rose” in particular covered a wide vocal range, and Mr. Daniels effectively drew out an introspective text considering destiny and fate. The close of this song drew a sparse yet dramatic accompaniment from Mr. Katz. The dancers shone in “L’Ile Inconnue,” with choreography simulating the swells of the sea. Mr. Daniels closed the concert with four folksong arrangements of Ohio composer Steven Mark Kohn. All composers need a performing advocate, and Mr. Kohn has a solid one in Mr. Daniels, who apparently has a long association with Kohn’s three sets of American Folksongs. These arrangements were nicely flowing and Mr. Kohn clearly writes well for the voice. “One the Other Shore” draws from an old American tune, which Mr. Daniels sang expressively, and Mr. Kohn’s Copland-esque musical style was a spirited way to end the concert.

Princeton University scored a coup with Mr. Daniels, also engaging him for a master class with five voice students from the department of music. If Princeton University concerts can continue to build extensive collaborations with major artists, the positive effects will be felt well through the musical community.


May 2, 2012

Princeton University Orchestra Presents 20th Century Giants in Season’s Last Concert

Princeton University Orchestra’s annual Stuart B. Mindlin Memorial Concerts are a celebration from many standpoints. Besides honoring a former member of the orchestra, these concerts also celebrate the graduating seniors in the ensemble, often include guest vocal artists, and traditionally challenge the orchestra to play some of the most difficult music there is. Friday night’s University Orchestra concert in Richardson Auditorium (the concert was repeated Saturday night) brought together works by two revolutionary composers that drew the best in rhythmic precision from the players.

The gestation of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck crossed over the entirety of World War I, so it is not surprising that the “three fragments” from the opera that were played by the ensemble were dark, with a somewhat disturbing text for the soprano soloist. Conductor Michael Pratt fielded a colossal number of players for this concert, joined by the always solid Sarah Pelletier. Given the lushness of Berg’s orchestral writing, Ms. Pelletier drew wisely on her previous experience with the opera and a formidable upper range to convey the story. With a well-blended brass accompaniment in the opening “fragment,” Ms. Pelletier took a maternal approach to the text, with the martial text especially well-timed with the orchestra. Ms. Pelletier continually kept the German text clean, saving the most vocal strength for the close of the second “fragment.” The final “fragment” brought the culmination of all that preceded, couched in the simplicity of child’s play, as the orchestra built intensity through melodic scales which seemed to end nowhere.

This piece, as well as the Stravinsky work which followed, provided ample opportunities for the seniors in the orchestra to shine as soloists. In the opening “fragment,” instrumental solos by clarinetist Jeffrey Hodes and cellist Francesca McNeeley punctuated the shimmering strings as the music passed through the sections.

Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was equally as avant-garde as Berg’s music, especially if the legend of its riot-filled premiere is true. Composed in the decade before Wozzeck, The Rite of Spring ballet score depicts raw and earthy “pictures of pagan Russia,” with pulsating rhythms and emotional intensity which was likely a shock to early 20th-century French audiences. Mr. Pratt and the University Orchestra presented the complete ballet score, consisting of fourteen connected sections divided into two parts. Starting with the opening bassoon solo elegantly played by Louisa Slosar, the orchestra played with a subtle underpinning which made the offbeat accents all the more jarring. Stravinsky’s music kept returning to the solo bassoon, as the orchestra musicians played accents in unison with almost simultaneous physical gestures as the players ended the first movement in an appropriate wild frenzy. Mr. Pratt kept the music flowing well, with conducting gestures precise among changing shifts in material. This music was clearly demanding on the players, with such effects as a long continuous clarinet trill well shared by two players without a gap in the sound.

Stravinsky’s music focused heavily on the winds, with many different colors coming from the clarinet section alone. Ms. Slosar and English hornist Drew Mayfield added grace to the instrumental palette, with very light flute as “icing.” Instrumental soloists scattered throughout the ensemble brought out the folktunes used in this work with clarity. In “The Sacrifice,” a very subtle pair of trumpets punctuated the pulsating winds. Key to the success of this piece was the precision in the strings — each player’s bowing was exactly the same as everyone else’s, giving exactness to the rhythm which is so important in Stravinsky.

Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in particular is characterized as a demonstration of orchestral virtuosity. The Princeton University Orchestra more than showed its mettle in this concert, with Mr. Pratt looking justifiably pleased with the performance and the players clearly enjoying their last few musical weeks of school.


April 25, 2012

Boheme Opera NJ Presents “Magic Flute” In College of New Jersey ‘s Kendall Hall Theatre

There are a number of venues for opera performance in the Princeton area, but one which is often overlooked is the Kendall Hall Theatre on the campus of The College of New Jersey. A relatively recent addition to the arts scene, this hall offers tremendous possibilities for multi-media productions. Boheme Opera NJ has also been often overlooked in the regional opera arena; the early years of the company’s 20-year history moved through several school auditoriums in the county, but the company has grown to offer professional opportunities to both national and local performers. Boheme Opera made good use of the multi-faceted Kendall Hall this past weekend with a full-staged production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The Sunday afternoon’s performance (the opera was also presented Friday night) was a brisk and clean rendition of Mozart’s always-popular opera, with some excellent singing and pacing that moved the fanciful story right along.

Performed in English with supertitles, this production used a translation which emphasized the Masonic aspects of the libretto — brotherhood, love, and virtue. Spoken dialog was clean from all performers, and the particular vocabulary of this translation substantially enhanced the singing and the mood of the scenes.

The lead performers had strong credits with national and international opera houses, and all were equally comfortable with Mozart. Although her character is onstage less than others, the Queen of the Night’s two arias are show-stoppers and this is the role audiences come to hear. Soprano Lorraine Ernest has made Mozart’s Queen her signature role, presenting a formidable and intimidating character, giving credence to the legend that the Queen may have been the embodiment of every over-bearing woman in Mozart’s life. Ms. Ernest had no trouble spinning off the high and fast coloratura (with the triplets in the “revenge” aria especially clean), and impressively exact timing between soprano and bassoon.

Sympathetic dramatic contrast came from the Queen’s daughter, Pamina, sung by Kristin Vogel. Paminas are sometimes cast as frail characters, but not in this case. Ms. Vogel sang with authority and sensitivity to the phrasing and mood of the text. Tenor James Price ably handled the role of Pamina’s love interest, Tamino. Comic relief came from bird-catcher Papageno, sung by baritone Kenneth Overton. Papageno cleverly played his own panpipe, proving a quirky tuning distinction from Tamino’s answering flute, and Mr. Overton was a warm and rich, yet precise singer. His Papagena, sung by soprano Erica Cochran, was captivating in her sparkle and light voice.

The role of High Priest Sarastro often vexes bass singers by its low register. It was refreshing to hear Tom McNichols, who has made a career out of basso profundo roles and was able to sing the role the way it was written, holding low notes for full lengths and clearly declaiming the text.

From the orchestra pit, conductor Joseph Pucciatti led an ensemble which played cleanly, keeping up well with Mr. Pucciatti’s brisk tempi. The only weak musical aspect may have been the chorus, which although well-trained in voice could have used more vocal bite and volume. Strength throughout the opera could be found in the ensembles (for which Mozart is known), with minor characters (some of whom came up through the Boheme Opera experience) showing solid stage and vocal presence.

One of the best attributes of Kendall Hall is its capability for multi-media, including the big screen at the back of the stage. Through the big screen, Virtual Set Designer J. Matthew Root was able to change scenes instantly, sometimes in the middle of arias, and the physical set onstage was able to stay simplistic against continually moving scenery and lighting. The forest scenes were particularly visual, with Tamino’s flute calling nymphs, rather than the customary forest animals.

Since 1982 Boheme Opera has presented all the greats of opera productions, but this was the company’s first Magic Flute. The days of “paying dues” in school auditoriums has clearly paid off — in its new home in Kendall Hall, the company can embark on a new era of opera performance with the best of technology and music.


April 18, 2012

Princeton University Opera Rises to Challenge Of Benjamin Britten’s “Albert Herring”

Every year or two, the Princeton University Department of Music presents a major opera with students in the starring roles. Given the magnitude of this year’s production, it is clear why the department spends at least a year putting these projects together. This past weekend brought Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera Albert Herring to the Richardson Auditorium stage, with most of the technically difficult roles handled by students singing well beyond their years. The designation of this opera as “chamber” is certainly understated — Albert Herring is as vocally complex and demanding as some major 19th-century works.

Friday night’s opening (the opera was repeated Saturday night) demonstrated how a tremendous amount of work had gone into presenting a smooth production with few flaws. University director of choral activities Gabriel Crouch took on a new role, conducting an orchestra comprised of area professionals and students, many of whom performed solos matching a specific character in mood and text. Most notable were flutist Jayn Rosenfeld, oboist Matt Sullivan, and hornist Karen Schubert, all of whom well interpreted Britten’s orchestral concept of opening scenes with extended instrumental solos setting the mood onstage. Britten composed Albert Herring shortly after World War II, when material things were likely scarce in Britain. Designer German Cardenas’ sets represented the era well, with simple furniture shaded in pinks and blues.

Albert Herring is cast with thirteen singers, each of whom must sing intricate vocal lines against an accompaniment that often has nothing to do with the singers’ parts. Of the vocal performers in this production, only one was cast with a non-student — the part of Mrs. Herring, sung by mezzo-soprano Danielle Wright. Ms. Wright brought a vast operatic background to this role, which required vocal power perhaps beyond the college-age range. The tenor role of Albert Herring also extended into a vocal maturity beyond college years, but sophomore Christopher Beard moved through the role well as the opera progressed, especially in a very physical and comical soliloquy. Mr. Beard was well able to hold his own in duets with Ms. Wright as his mother. These two significant roles were joined by elderly autocrat Lady Billows, sung by sophomore Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa. More than any other member of the cast, Ms. Tawengwa sang with vocal skill well beyond her University level, wielding her cane as well as her words and bringing solid comic character to the part. These were all challenging roles, but Lady Billows in particular stretched well into dramatic soprano range.

Lady Billows seemed to be always surrounded by her entourage, comprised of the teacher, the vicar, the mayor and the constabulary. As the vicar, Dan Corica showed himself to be a solid tenor with a great deal of animation. His fellow tenor onstage, Saumitra Sahi performing the role of the mayor, sang with more vocal bite, but equally as much animation. The role of the constabulary was clearly borrowed from Gilbert & Sullivan, with bass Kevin Zhu looking every bit the part of a keystone cop, singing decisively into the lower bass register and registering every comic look of dismay and agitation. Soprano Anna Powell sang the role of Miss Wordsworth the teacher with sparkle going as high into the vocal stratosphere as Mr. Zhu was in the basement. The tough role of Housekeeper Florence, with a great deal of a cappella singing, was well handled by Stella Kim, who particularly came to life in the scene which decided Albert Herring should be the “King of the May.” Katherine Buzard and Matthew Walsh sang the romantic roles of Nancy and Sid, respectively, and were particularly effective in a late Act 1 duet in which they sang very clean octaves against what seemed to be a totally unrelated orchestral accompaniment. Music director Gabriel Crouch kept things well under control in the pit, allowing the thirteen-piece orchestra to build ensemble tension gradually. Like Gilbert & Sullivan, Albert Herring is overly-melodramatic at times, with its instrumental music very appealing and played cleanly.

This was a huge undertaking by the department of music, with tough music requiring supreme confidence from the singers. It is very unusual to hear an opera of this difficulty performed at the collegiate level, and the Princeton University Opera performers were no doubt rightfully proud of their accomplishment.


New York City’s Ballet “Farm Team” Brings Their Program to McCarter

THE WORKS OF GEORGE BALANCHINE: Principal dancers, Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette from the New York City Ballet, will return to McCarter Theatre on Tuesday, April 24. The dancers will perform a range of works by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, and Peter Martins. For more information, visit www.nycballet.com. (Photo Credit: Paul Kolnik)

 

At McCarter Theatre last fall, a group of principal dancers from the New York City Ballet took part in a lecture demonstration about the works of choreographer George Balanchine. Presented in conjunction with a course being taught at Princeton University by former City Ballet member Heather Watts, the program was a revelation to audience members. The celebrated dancers — among the finest on stages today — wore practice clothes to perform excerpts from several ballets, giving audience members a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into their world.

Many of those same dancers will return to McCarter on Tuesday, April 24, when New York City Ballet MOVES, a kind of farm team for the company, brings a program of works by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Wheeldon, and Peter Martins to the Matthews Theatre stage. Tiler Peck, Daniel Ulbricht, Wendy Whelan, and brother-and-sister Megan and Robert Fairchild, all of whom performed in the lecture demonstration, are among this stellar group. They are joined by Tyler Angle, Andrew Veyette, Sara Mearns, Amar Ramasar, Jonathan Stafford, and other well-known members of the company.

Peter Martins, who has led City Ballet since Balanchine died in 1983, came up with the idea for MOVES a few years ago. “It was a vision of Peter’s,” says Jean-Pierre Frohlich, MOVES’ Artistic Administrator/Director and a former principal dancer with City Ballet. “He always wanted to have a small group to be able to tour to venues that normally the company as a whole does not visit. I think it was also a way to get our name out there, giving people a professional company with wonderful ballets. Basically, it’s to get people to get to know New York City Ballet.”

MOVES’ first tour was to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “It was a very big success,” recounts Mr. Frohlich. “The following year we went to the Vail Dance Festival in Colorado, and then back to Jackson Hole, where quite a few people from other institutions came to see us, liked us, and asked us to come to them.”

What followed were engagements in Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, California, and elsewhere, in addition to Princeton. The company will return to Vail this summer, and some European theaters are interested in presenting them.

City Ballet MOVES dances mostly small-scale ballets that require little scenery, but almost always to live music. “Due to our orchestra union contract, we have to perform to live music and cannot use tapes unless the ballet being presented was premiered without live music,” Mr. Frohlich says. “So some of the ballets will have a piano accompanist, or a pianist and violinist, or more. Most of the dancers are principals with the main company, though this time we’re bringing some members of the corps de ballet as well.”

On Tuesday’s program are Balanchine’s Duo Concertant, which debuted at the 1972 Stravinsky Festival; Robbins’ In the Night, danced to piano music by Chopin; Wheeldon’s Polyphonia,” to Ligeti; and Martins’ A Fool for You, to songs by Ray Charles and others (taped). Mr. Frohlich says a new piece is being created for the company by City Ballet dancer Justin Peck. It will premier in Vail this summer.

City Ballet’s regular schedule includes long engagements at Lincoln Center each winter and spring, followed by summer seasons in Saratoga Springs and touring to various parts of the globe. Adding extra work with MOVES might be considered a burden, but Mr. Frohlich says it is quite the opposite.

“The dancers love it,” he says. “A lot of the dancers who haven’t gotten to participate yet are envious of those who have. We try to rotate the group, because this is extra work for them, beyond the guaranteed work week. But they are happy to participate, because it’s more relaxed. They get to experience each other more, and become very good friends. And for the younger dancers in the corps, its especially exciting, because they might get an opportunity to do a role they wouldn’t get the chance to do otherwise.”


April 4, 2012

University’s Music Department Presents An Evening of One-Act Opera Premieres

One only has to attend a local Metropolitan opera moviecast to know that opera is popular in Princeton. What is lesser known to audiences in the area is the process by which an opera comes to be. The Princeton University Music Department, in collaboration with the Lewis Center for the Arts, has spent the past few years immersed in a creative project bringing professionals and students together to produce three one-act operas exploring the relationship among music, text, and the body onstage. The three one-act operas presented this past weekend in McCarter’s Berlind Theater were diverse in theme and musical style, but were bound together in their uniqueness and challenge to the creative process.

Saturday night’s presentation (the performance was also held Friday night) included two extended one-act operas and one of shorter length, but less time did not necessarily mean less material. Director Mark DeChiazza bracketed James Chu’s 10-minute tennis-themed opera, dense in music and dramatic nuance, with works by two well-established composers, the first was Anthony Davis’s Lear on the Second Floor. Throughout his extensive compositional career, Mr. Davis has drawn his operatic storylines from some of America’s darker political moments, and Lear on the 2nd Floor brought the Shakespearean story of King Lear into the modern-day dilemma of Alzheimer’s diagnosis and caregiving. Mr. Davis consulted with medical experts during the work’s composition to get the details right, and incorporated visual and aural effects to emphasize a range of confusion. The lead character, transplanted into a high-powered 21st-century neuroscience career, was dramatically sung by soprano Susan Narucki. Although occasionally overpowered by the small orchestra, Ms. Narucki demonstrated solid command of a very complex role. Opera is full of characters who descend into madness (usually played by sopranos), but Ms. Narucki’s Nora Lear wandered among a wide range of mental uncertainties, including seeing visions of her dead husband, decisively sung by bass-baritone Justin Hopkins. Nora Lear’s daughters, all vying for custodial rights, were effectively sung by Tara Naoko Ohrtman, Katherine Buzard, and Tessa Romano. Ms. Buzard in particular demonstrated a strong vocal sound as a defiant daughter. Humor came into this dark theme in the character of the hospital nurse, sung by Jorrell Williams.

Next to an opera about Alzheimer’s, a work taking place in a tennis club might seem like a theatrical piece of cake, but Princeton University student James Chu’s one-act Off Court was full of more political nuance than initially met the ear. Soprano Katherine Buzard (who had a very busy evening) turned in a very different character as the reluctant wife whose husband (sung by Jonathan Choi) desperately wanted to gain acceptance to the very exclusive tennis club. Mr. Chu’s music was underscored with unspoken plotlines about exclusion and compliance, with unique instrumental sonorities from a small orchestra placed onstage as part of the action.

The most theatrically complicated production was saved for last — Barbara White’s Weakness. Based on the Celtic story of The Curse of Macha, Ms. White’s music and libretto introduced one character whose voice and body were separated into two performers: soprano Sarah Davis and dancer Leslie Kraus. With brilliant hair (also matched by the dancer), Ms. Davis showed a spectacular range of vocal styles and intensity, backed by a multi-aged chorus and an unusual orchestration of electric guitar, clarinet, bass clarinet, percussion and shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute. The soaring quality of Ms. Davis’ sound was matched by the litheness and agility of Ms. Kraus, with sections of the opera being positively eerie in mood. No matter what the demanding vocal requirement, Ms. Davis hit every note right, and her regal demeanor was a good contrast to Ms. Kraus’ lightness on the stage. Throughout all three operas, Rachel Hauck’s set design and Jane Cox’s lighting design made the most use of the limited amount of stage at the Berlind.

The Princeton University One-Act Opera Project was a long time coming in preparation, but has certainly focused on something entirely new for the University. A great deal of thought clearly went into selecting these works and figuring out how these pieces could “live together” on the same stage and on the same evening, but all three achieved a goal of taking the form of opera in new directions.