Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Edgier, grittier, updated "Carmen" grips audience in Portland Opera production

Matthew Cerillo as El Remendado, Cloe SanAntonio as Mercédès, Maya Lahyani as Carmen, Judy Yannini as Frasquita, and Zachary Lenox as El Dancaïro. Photo by Christine Dong.

Since “Carmen” is a bullet-proof opera that is often performed in a fanciful, romantic vein, it was refreshing to see Portland Opera present the new interpretation that Denyce Graves designed for this beloved work. If anyone knows “Carmen” inside and out, it is Graves, who is considered one of the greatest in the title role. The Graves-envisioned-production, premiered by Minnesota Opera before travelling to Glimmerglass and then to Portland, put a grittier and darker spin on the tragic story than usual. But infused with the singing and acting of Maya Lahyani as of the free-spirited woman, the performance on November 11 at Keller Auditorium resonated well with the nearly full house, making it a night to remember.

Although Graves was not able to attend the production, Eric Sean Fogel, who assisted her at Minnesota and Glimmerglass, made sure that everything went smoothly. This “Carmen” was updated with a contemporary look, including the Seguidille where Lahyani, clicked little coffee cups (if I saw that correctly) instead of castanets. The pantomime of a man being strangled during the overture strongly foreshadowed Carmen’s death at the end of the opera.

Sets designed by Riccardo Hernandez included a huge door for the cigarette factory that opened vertically into the fly space. The huge, matriarch-like sculpture near the bull-ring seemed a bit out of place, but figuratively seemed to tie the scene to the Romani people.

Mezzo-soprano Lahyani expertly conveyed the sexy and willful title character fluidly – one moment she could be enticingly saucy and the next moment aggressively taunting. Her voice deftly expressed Carmen’s desires with ease, from her enticing tra-la-las to her defiant refusal of Don José.

Making his professional debut, tenor Matthew Pearce turned in a stellar Don José. His high notes had verve and a remarkable sheen that grew with intensity as he became the crazed, jealous lover.

Soprano Ariana Wehr wonderfully captured the purity of Micaëla with a beautiful tone and her interaction with Pearce created a tender moment in opera that has a lot of hard edges.

Matthew Pearce as Don José and Arianna Wehr as Micaëla. Photo by Christine Dong.

Richard Ollarsaba cut a dashing figure as Escamillo, all decked out in toreador glitz that was polished by his bass-baritone. The addition of an eyepatch suggested that his days in the ring were numbered, and sure enough, he was brought out in a stretcher all blooded and dead right after Carmen met her end.

Zachary Lenox as El Dancaïro and Matthew Cerillo as El Remendado teamed up with gusto to convey the rough and tumble smugglers. Darren Lekeith Drone had plenty of heft as the platoon commander Zuñiga. Keanon Kyles distinguished himself as the corporal Moralés and Gregory Brumfield as the café owner Lillas Pastia. Judy Yannini’s Frasquita and Cloe Sanatonio’s Mercédès aptly conveyed the lighter side of fortune-telling.

Costumes by Oana Botez gave the Roma women and men colorful outfits, and plain, dark blue uniforms with padded vests to the soldiers. Fight choreographer Jon Armour unleashed an unforgettable scene in which complete mayhem breaks out at the end of Act I.

Dance sequences by Madison Hertel, Gemma Isaacson, Jasmine Harris, and Michael Francis McBride swirled about, adding spice and miraculously didn’t hit anyone when the stage was crowded.

The orchestra delivered a solid performance under the baton of Michael Ellis Ingram. The chorus, prepared by Nicholas Fox, sang full tilt. Guitarist Berto Boyd created a couple of well-placed segues with improvised pieces and thoughtfully avoided flamenco-like phrases.

Although Keller Auditorium was not sold out, it was very full, and I heard that the other two performances also drew large audiences. That bodes well for Portland Opera – especially in taking on a “Carmen” production that was not in the traditional style.

Today's Birthdays

Carl Loewe (1796-1869)
Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)
Sergei Liapunov (1859-1924)
Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907)
Ture Rangström (1884-1947)
Ray Henderson (1896-1970)
Klaus Huber (1924-2017)
Günther Herbig (1931)
Walter Weller (1939-2015)
Radu Lupu (1945)
Semyon Bychkov (1952)

and

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
L(ucy) M(aud) Montgomery (1874-1942)
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Jacques Barzun (1907-2012)
David Mamet (1947)

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Baroque bout! - Reviews of the three candidates for PBO's artistic helm - in OAW

My reviews of the concerts that will help to determine the next artistic leader of the Portland Baroque Orchestra is now posted on Oregon ArtsWatch here.  I have to admit that it was fun to write up!

Today's Birthdays

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967)
John Brecknock (1937-2017)
Chuck Mangione (1940)
Louise Winter (1959)

and

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888)
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007)

Monday, November 28, 2022

Holiday classical music guide published in The Oregonian


 I wrote up a number of recommended concerts for The Oregonian. They are available online here and will appear in the printed edition of the paper on Friday.

Today's Birthdays

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838)
Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894)
Pamela Harrison (1915-1990)
Berry Gordy Jr. (1929)
Randy Newman (1943)
Diedre Murray (1951)

and

John Bunyan (1628-1688)
William Blake (1757-1827)
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Stefan Zweig (1881-1942)
Nancy Mitford (1904-1973)
Rita Mae Brown (1944)
Alan Lightman (1948)

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1678)
Anton Stamitz (1750-1798 or 1809)
Franz Krommer (1759-1831)
Sir Julian Benedict (1804-1885)
Viktor Ewald (1860-1935)
Charles Koechlin (1867-1950)
Leon Barzin (1900-1999)
Walter Klien (1928-1991)
Helmut Lachenmann (1935)
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
David Felder (1953)
Victoria Mullova (1959)
Hilary Hahn (1979)

and

Anders Celsius (1701-1744)
Charles Beard (1874–1948)
James Agee (1909-1955)
Marilyn Hacker (1942)
Bill Nye (1955)

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Earl Wild (1915-2010)
Eugene Istomin (1925-2003)
Alan Stout (1932-2018)
John Sanders (1933-2003)
Craig Sheppard (1947)
Vivian Tierney (1957)
Spencer Topel (1979)

and

Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994)
Charles Schulz (1922-2000)
Marilynne Robinson (1943)

Friday, November 25, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Franz Gruber (1785-1863)
Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991)
Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)
Paul Desmond (1924-1977)
Sir John Drummond (1934-2006)
Jean-Claude Malgoire (1940)
Håkan Hagegård (1945)
Yvonne Kenny (1950)
Gilles Cachemaille (1951)

and

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)
Helen Hooven Santmyer (1895-1986)
Lewis Thomas (1913-1993)
Murray Schisgal (1926-2020)
Shelagh Delaney (1938-2011)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1934, conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler's article "The Hindemith Case" defending Hindemith's music appears in several German newspapers. A response attacking both Hindemith and Furtwängler appears in the Nazi newspaper "Der Angriff" on November 28. Furtwängler resigns all his official German posts on December 4 and leaves Berlin for several months. On December 6 Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels denounces Hindemith as an "atonal noisemaker" during a speech at the Berlin Sport Palace.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
Willie ("The Lion") Smith (1897-1973)
Norman Walker (1907-1963)
Erik Bergman (1911-2006)
Alfredo Kraus (1927-1999)
Emma Lou Diemer (1927)
Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
Maria Chiara (1939)
Chinary Ung (1942)
Tod Machover (1953)
Jouni Kaipainen (1956)
Samuel Zygmuntowicz
Edgar Meyer (1960)
Angelika Kirchschlager (1965)

and

Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677)
Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)
Margaret Anderson (1886-1973)
Dorothy Butler Gilliam (1936)
Nuruddin Farah (1945)
Arundhati Roy (1961)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1850, the legendary soprano Adelina Patti makes her operatic debut at age 16 in New York City, singing in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor."

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Preview of upcoming Fear No Music concert published in OAW

My preview of Fear No Music's season opener, including interviews with Kenji Bunch and Monica Ohuchi and composers involved in the program, is now available for your reading pleasure in Oregon ArtsWatch here. Note that the concert includes a piece by Ukranian composer Victoria Polevá. I was able to exchange email with her about it and post her thoughts in the preview.

Today's Birthdays

Pierre Du Mage (1674-1751)
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
André Caplet (1878-1925)
Guy Reginald Bolton (1884-1979)
Jerry Bock (1928-2010)
Vigen Derderian (1929-2003)
Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020)
Ludovico Einaudi (1955)
Thomas Zehetmair (1961)
Nicolas Bacri (1961)
Ed Harsh (1962)

and

Harpo Marx (1888-1964)
Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897-1999)
Paul Celan (1920-1950)
Jennifer Michael Hecht (1965)

and from the Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1889, the first jukebox was unveiled in a saloon in San Francisco. It was invented by Louis Glass, who had earlier worked as a telegraph operator for Western Union and then co-founded the Pacific Phonographic Company. He was fascinated by the phonograph technology and saw a market for charging people to listen to them, since phonographs were still too expensive to buy for your own home. He installed the machine in the Palais Royal saloon simply because he knew the owner and it was close to his house, so he didn’t have to carry the machine very far.

The word “jukebox” wasn’t invented until the 1920s. Glass called his machine the “nickel-in-the-slot phonograph,” since you had to pay a nickel to hear a song play. In today’s money, a nickel was about $1.27 at the time. The first machine had four different stethoscopes attached to it that functioned as headphones. Each pair of headphones had to be activated by putting in a nickel, and then several people could listen to the same song at once. There were towels left by each listening device so people could wipe them off after using. As part of his agreement with the saloonkeepers, at the end of each song, the machine told the listener to “go over to the bar and buy a drink.”

His phonograph was a huge hit and, at a conference in Chicago, Glass told his competitors that his first 15 machines brought in over $4,000 in six months. This led to other manufacturers making their own machines. Shortly after, Thomas Edison designed a phonograph people could buy for their homes, which also cut into the market. Glass’s invention eventually made the player piano obsolete, and competitors updated the jukebox with new technologies from record players to CDs. Now there is such a thing as a digital jukebox, but they never really caught on, since they come with the size and expense of a regular jukebox, without any of the charm of flipping through the records and watching the moving parts of the machine.

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Frantisek Benda (1709-1786)
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
Conradin Kreutzer (1780-1849)
Edgard Varèse (1883-1965)
Hoagy Carmichael (1899-1981)
Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999)
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Gunther Schuller (1925-2015)
Jimmy Knepper (1927-2003)
Hans Zender (1936-2019)
Kent Nagano (1951)
Stephen Hough (1961)
Sumi Jo (1962)
Edward Gardner (1974)
and

George Eliot (1819-1880)
André Gide (1869-1951)
Winfred Rembert (1945-2021)

And from The Writer's Almanac:

It’s the feast day of Saint Cecilia, who was the patron saint of musicians because she sang to God as she died a martyr’s death. She was born to a noble family in Rome near the end of the second century A.D.

It wasn’t really until the 1400s that people really began to celebrate her widely as the patron saint of music. Then, in the 1500s, people in Normandy held a large musical festival to honor her, and the trend made its way to England in the next century. Henry Purcell composed celebratory odes to honor her, and the painter Raphael created a piece called “The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia.” Chaucer wrote about her in the Second Nonnes Tale, and Handel composed a score for a famous ode to her that John Dryden had written.

Today, Saint Cecilia is often commemorated in paintings and on stained glass windows as sitting at an organ.

Monday, November 21, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969)
Bernard Lagacé (1930)
Malcolm Williamson (1931-2003)
James DePreist (1936-2013)
Idil Biret (1941)
Vinson Cole (1950)
Kyle Gann (1955)
Stewart Wallace (1960)
Björk (1965)

and

Voltare (1694-1778)
Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944)
Mary Johnston (1870-1936)
René Magritte (1898-1967
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-1991)
Marilyn French (1929-2009)
Tina Howe (1937)

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Edmond Dédé (1827-1903)
Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-1953)
Maya Plisetskaya (1925-2015)
René Kolo (1937)
Gary Karr (1941)
Meredith Monk (1942)
Phillip Kent Bimstein (1947)
Barbara Hendricks (1948)

and

Nadine Gordimer (1923-2014)
Maya Plisetskaya (1925-2015)
R.W. Apple Jr. (1934-2006)
Don DeLillo (1936)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1805, Beethoven's opera "Fidelio" (1st version, with the "Leonore" Overture No. 2) was premiered in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien.

Saturday, November 19, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712)
Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859-1935)
Jean‑Yves Daniel‑Lesur (1908-2002)
Géza Anda (1921-1976)
Maralin Niska (1926-2010)
David Lloyd-Jones (1934)
Agnes Baltsa (1944)
Ross Bauer (1951)

and

Allen Tate (1899-1979)
Sharon Olds (1942)

and from The Writer's Almanac:

On this date in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was four and a half months after the devastating battle, and it was a foggy, cold morning. Lincoln arrived about 10 a.m. Around noon, the sun came out as the crowds gathered on a hill overlooking the battlefield. A military band played, a local preacher offered a long prayer, and the headlining orator, Edward Everett, spoke for more than two hours. Everett described the Battle of Gettysburg in great detail, and he brought the audience to tears more than once. When Everett finished, Lincoln spoke.

Now considered one of the greatest speeches in American history, the Gettysburg Address ran for just over two minutes, fewer than 300 words, and only 10 sentences. It was so brief, in fact, that many of the 15,000 people that attended the ceremony didn't even realize that the president had spoken, because a photographer setting up his camera had momentarily distracted them. The next day, Everett told Lincoln, "I wish that I could flatter myself that I had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes."

There are several versions of the speech, and five different manuscript copies; they're all slightly different, so there's some argument about which is the "authentic" version. Lincoln gave copies to both of his private secretaries, and the other three versions were re-written by the president some time after he made the speech. The Bliss Copy, named for Colonel Alexander Bliss, is the only copy that was signed and dated by Lincoln, and it's generally accepted as the official version for that reason.

Friday, November 18, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Jean‑Baptiste Loeillet (1680-1730)
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911)
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941)
Amelita Galli‑Curci (1882-1963)
Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985)
Lillian Fuchs (1901-1995)
Compay Segundo (1907-2003)
Johnny Mercer (1909-1976)
Don Cherry (1936-1995)
Heinrich Schiff (1951)
Bernard d'Ascoli (1958)

and

Louis Daguerre (1787-1851)
Asa Gray (1810-1888)
George Gallup (1901-1984)
Margaret Atwood (1939)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1741, Handel arrives in Dublin for an extended stay, involving a number of concerts in the Irish capital, including the premiere of his latest oratorio "Messiah" the following Spring (Gregorian date: Nov. 29).

On this day in 1928, Mickey Mouse debuts in "Steamboat Willie," in New York. This was the first animated cartoon with synchronized pre-recorded sound effects and music -- the latter provided by organist and composer Carl Stalling of Kansas City. Stalling would later provide memorable music for many classic Warner Brothers cartoons.

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Ernest Lough (1911-2000)
Hershy Kay (1919-1981)
Leonid Kogan (1924-1982)
Sir Charles Mackerras (1925-2010)
David Amram (1930)
Gene Clark (1941-1991)
Philip Picket (1950)
Philip Grange (1956)

and

Shelby Foote (1916-2006)

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831)
Alfred Hill (1869-1960)
W. C. Handy (1873-1958)
Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
Burnet Tuthill (1888-1982)
Lawrence Tibbett (1896-1960)
David Wilson-Johnson (1950)
Donald Runnicles (1954)
John Butt (1960)

and

George S. Kaufman (1889-1961)v José Saramago (1922-2010)
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
Andrea Barrett (1954)

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Sir William Herschel (1738-1822)
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani (1905-1980)
Petula Clark (1932)
Peter Dickinson (1934)
Daniel Barenboim (1942)
Pierre Jalbert (1967)

and

Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946)
Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960)
Georgia O'Keefe (1887-1986)
Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1926, the first broadcast of a music program took place on the NBC radio network, featuring the New York Symphony conducted by Walter Damrosch, the New York Oratorio Society, and the Goldman Band, with vocal soloists Mary Garden and Tito Ruffo, and pianist Harold Bauer.

Monday, November 14, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837)
Fanny Hensel (1805-1847)
Rev. John Curwen (1816-1880)
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Leonie Rysanek (1926-1998)
Jorge Bolet (1914-1990)
Narciso Yepes (1927-1997)
Robert Lurtsema (1931-2000)
Peter Katin (1930-2015)
Ellis Marsalis (1934-2020)
William Averitt (1948)

and

Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002)
William Steig (1907-2003)

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Jan Zach (1699-1773)
Louis Lefébure-Wély (1817-1870)
Brinley Richards (1817-1885)
George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931)
Marguerite Long (1874-1966)
Joonas Kokkoken (1921-1996)
Lothar Zagrosek (1942)
Martin Bresnick (1946)

and

St. Augustine (354-430)
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
George V. Higgins (1939-1999)
Eamon Grennan (1941)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1937, the first "official" radio broadcast by the NBC Symphony Orchestra took place with Pierre Monteux conducting. Arthur Rodzinski had conducted a "dress rehearsal" broadcast on Nov. 2, 1937. Arturo Toscanini's debut broadcast with the NBC Symphony would occur on Christmas Day, 1937.

Saturday, November 12, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)
Jean Papineau-Couture (1916-2000)
Michael Langdon (1920-1991)
Lucia Popp (1939-1993)
Neil Young (1945)

and

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Roland Barthes (1915-1980)
Michael Ende (1929-1995)
Tracy Kidder (1945)
Katherine Weber (1955)

From the New Music Box:

On November 12, 1925, cornetist Louis Armstrong made the first recordings with a group under his own name for Okeh Records in Chicago, Illinois. The group, called Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, recorded his original compositions, "Gut Bucket Blues" and "Yes! I'm In The Barrel" (Okeh 8261) as well as "My Heart" composed by his wife Lil Hardin who was the pianist in the band. (The flipside of the 78 rpm record on which the latter was issued, Okeh 8320, was "Armstrong's composition "Cornet Chop Suey" recorded three months later on February 26, 1926.) Armstrong's Hot Five and subsequent Hot Seven recordings are widely considered to be the earliest masterpieces of recorded jazz.

Friday, November 11, 2022

New film covers the making of An African American Requiem


 From the Press Release:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022, Resonance Ensemble and Alberta House invite you to celebrate the premiere of the short film, “Around the Requiem,” featuring an intimate conversation with the artists and members of the creative team from last spring’s An African American Requiem. 

About the Film: Commissioned by Resonance Ensemble and produced by Oh! Creative, the film was made two days before the world premiere of An African American Requiem. In the film, poet and collaborator Dr. S. Renee Mitchell moderates a conversation with composer Damien Geter; conductor William Eddins; soloists Brandie Sutton, Karmesha Peake, Bernard Holcomb, and Kenneth Overton; and Onry, a baritone from the African American Requiem choir. The group discusses the significance of Geter’s work, their experiences as Black artists in classical music, their struggles, and their joy.

Resonance created a series of videos to support the premiere of An African American Requiem, from the deeply personal My Requiem Story series to their curriculum that has reached hundreds of public school students (and counting!). “Around the Requiem” is the final video of the series.

About the Event: A reception will kick off the event at 6:00 PM, with small bites and a no-host bar, and the screening begins at 6:30 PM. Resonance Ensemble’s Artistic Director Dr. Katherine FitzGibbon and Alberta House’s Artistic Director Vin Shambry will introduce the 40-minute film. After the screening, all are welcome to stay for a conversation with Mitchell, FitzGibbon, and Shambry.

About the Partnership between Resonance Ensemble and Alberta House: Resonance Ensemble is an ensemble in residence at Alberta House, and their missions and histories have a great deal in common. Vin Shambry notes, “My work with Resonance goes back a long time. From performing with them, to collaborating to make the Portland arts community a more radically inclusive place, to being profoundly moved by this spring’s African American Requiem, it is important to me that this group’s voice is heard.” 

Shambry continues, “When I saw An African American Requiem last Spring, it moved me to my core. I even keep the tickets on my desk to remind me of that experience. And that’s just one example of why I love Resonance. This superpower of using art to remind us of our soul is the reason I do the work I do at Alberta House and why we are proud partners with Resonance.”

Donations are welcome; all proceeds will benefit future partnership initiatives between Resonance Ensemble and Alberta House. FitzGibbon adds, “We view this as an opportunity to give thanks for our ongoing partnership with Alberta House and our shared missions of creating art that builds community and promotes meaningful change.”

Reception at 6, welcome and premiere at 6:30

To register for the event click here.

Today's Birthdays

Bernhard Romberg (1767-1841)
Frederick Stock (1872-1942)
Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969)
Jan Simons (1925-2006)
Arthur Cunningham (1928-1997
Vernon Handley (1930-2008)
Harry Bramma (1936)
Jennifer Bate (1944)
Fang Man (1977)

and

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012)
Mary Gaitskill (1955)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1898, shortly after it was finished, the painting “Nevermore” by Gaugin is purchased by the English composer Frederick Delius. The painting was inspired by Poe’s famous poem and is now in the collection of London’s Cortland Gallery.

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Finely played trumpet concertos and Beethoven works make VSO concert a winner

Since the vast majority of orchestral concertos are written for the piano or violin, it was refreshing to hear the trumpet as the featured instrument at Vancouver Symphony concert last weekend. Trumpeter Craig Morris blew his way into the VSO record books with sterling performances of concertos by Josef Haydn and Krzysztof Penderecki on Sunday afternoon, November 6, at SkyView Concert Hall with Salvador Brotons leading the hometown band.

Morris’s pedigree with the trumpet includes a Grammy nomination in 2019 in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category for his recording, Three Pieces in the Shape of a Square. He has been the principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony and associate principal at the San Francisco Symphony. He is a longtime faculty member at the Frost School of Music in Miami, Florida.

The pairing of the two concertos on the VSO program made a neat one-two punch. The Haydn Trumpet Concerto, one of the finest pieces for that instrument ever written, is popular for its beautiful melodies yet requires technical prowess. In his performance, Morris demonstrated full command of the piece, delivering a nuanced interpretation that included well-placed diminuendos and crescendos. His cadenza in the first movement started with a cascade of high notes and a variation on the main theme. He played the slow second movement with terrific sensitivity and finished off the third with a spritely flourish.

Penderecki’s Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra requires that the soloist begin offstage; so, it was odd to see Morris walk to centerstage after the pieced started. But that actually worked well with the orchestra part, which accompanied him with a circus-like fanfare. Morris executed a lot of tricky-sounding passages and played a segment with muted trumpet before switching to the flugelhorn, which transitioned the piece to a mellow Larghetto. With principal flutist Rachel Rencher and the orchestra, Morris created a mysterious atmosphere and a bit of suspense before going to an agitated section. Later, returning to the trumpet, another a highlight was a passage with bass clarinetist Barbara Heilmar that sounded a bit like walking through the woods. The last part of the piece was sort of a race down the home stretch with Morris and the orchestra crossing the finish line exactly together.

The audience responded the Penderecki piece with loud applause, and Morris followed it with an encore on the flugelhorn, playing Melody No. 8 from his album of music for solo trumpet by Philip Glass. Its pleasant, melancholic theme was acknowledged by listeners with a warm response.

Beethoven’s “Egmont Overture,” which opened the concert, received a spirited and rewarding performance from Brotons and the orchestra. All of the thematic material was clearly shown and woven, and it all culminated in a stirring ending. Bravos all around.

The second half of the concert featured Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Brotons and company gave the piece a solid interpretation, starting out of the gate with its iconic, forceful four-note statement. The horns scored points for its polished sound that had just the right amount of wildness. The orchestral forces distinguished themselves with excellent crescendos and decrescendos in the second movement, which reinforced its dramatic character. The third movement had enough thrust to propel the piece into the fourth and, urged on by Brotons’ emphatic conducting, the orchestra, accented by Forian Consetti’s timpani, generated an exciting, triumphant finale.

During the enthusiastic acclaim from all corners of the hall, Brotons waded into the orchestra to acknowledge the contributions from the musicians. That put the finishing touches on a winning concert.

Today's Birthdays

Martin Luther (1483-1546)
François Couperin (1668-1733)
John Phillips Marquand (1873-1949)
Carl Stalling (1891-1972)
Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)
Graham Clark (1941)
Sir Tim Rice (1944)
Andreas Scholl (1967)

and

Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774)
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805)
Vachel Lindsey (1879-1931)
John Phillips Marquand (1893-1960)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1900, Russian pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch makes his Carnegie Hall debut in New York City during his first American tour. In 1909 he married contralto Clara Clemens, the daughter of the American writer Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain.

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Three reviews of Oregon Symphony concerts published in OAW


Oregon ArtsWatch has posted a triple-decker sandwich, containing my reviews of the last three Oregon Symphony concerts. I hope that you enjoy reading them.

Today's Birthdays

Burrill Phillips (1907-1988)
Pierrette Alarie (1921-2011)
Piero Cappuccilli (1929-2005)
Ivan Moravec (1930-2015)
William Thomas McKinley (1938-2015)
Thomas Quasthoff (1959)
Bryn Terfel (1965)

and

Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883)
Hugh Leonard (1926-2009)
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Friedrich Witt (1770-1836)
Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
Lamberto Gardelli (1915-1938)
Jerome Hines (1921-2003)
Richard Stoker (1938)
Simon Standage (1941)
Judith Zaimont (1945)
Tadaaki Otaka (1947)
Elizabeth Gale (1948)
Bonnie Raitt (1949)
Ana Vidović (1980)

and

Dorothy Day (1897-1980)
Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)
Raja Rao (1908-2006)
Kazuo Ishiguro (1954)

Monday, November 7, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Ferenc (Franz) Erkel (1810-1893)
Efrem Kurtz (1900-1995)
William Alwyn (1905-1985)
Al Hirt (1922-1999)
Dame Joan Sutherland (1926-2010)
Dame Gwyneth Jones (1937)
Joni Mitchell (1943)
Judith Forst (1943)
Christina Viola Oorebeek (1944)

and

Marie Curie (1867-1934)
Lise Meitner (1878-1968)
Albert Camus (1913-1960)
Benny Andersen (1929-2018)
Stephen Greenblatt (1943)

Sunday, November 6, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Adolphe Sax (1814-1894)
John Philip Sousa (1854-1932)
Don Lusher (1923-2006)
James Bowman (1941)
Arturo Sandoval (1949)
Daniele Gatti (1961)

and

Robert Musil (1880-1942)
Harold Ross (1892-1951
Ann Porter (1911-2011)
James Jones (1921-1977)
Michael Cunningham (1952)

From The Writer's Almanac:

It’s the birthday of the March King, John Philip Sousa, born in Washington, D.C. (1854). His father was a U.S. Marine Band trombonist, and he signed John up as an apprentice to the band after the boy tried to run away from home to join the circus. By the time he was 13 years old, Sousa could play violin, piano, flute, cornet, baritone, trombone, and was a pretty good singer too. At 26, he was leading the Marine Band and writing the first of his 136 marches, including “Semper Fidelis,” which became the official march of the Corps, and “The Washington Post March.” In addition to those marches, he wrote nearly a dozen light operas, and as many waltzes too; and he wrote three novels. But he’s best known for “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Seattle Opera's Tristan und Isolde in a winning production without extra innings

Mary Elizabeth Williams as Isolde and Stefan Vinke as Tristan. Photo credit: Sunny Martini.

It’s a rare occasion when a cultural event parallels a sporting event on a metaphysical plane, but that is what happened on October 13 when patrons of Seattle Opera bathed themselves in the five-hour-long sonic wash of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at McCaw Hall while fans of the Seattle Mariners endured an epic 18-inning melodramatic playoff game at T-Mobile Park. Both productions ended with a Liebestod (Love-Death). At the opera house, the emotionally surging music put the climatic touches with the Irish princess, Isolde (Mary Elizabeth Williams), singing over the expired body of her knight, Tristan (Stefan Vinke). Meanwhile at the ballpark, the Mariners (the baseball team have not made it to the playoffs in 21 years) lost 1-0 in a game that lasted six hours and 22 minutes and consequently were eliminated from further competition.

Operagoers got the better deal that with an evocative and clearly presented production that was not flawless but had enough high points to fill the scorecards of devoted fans. Williams, a favorite of Seattle operagoers, made her Wagnerian debut in the terrifically strenuous role. Her voice had a bit of uncharacteristic edginess for part of the first act, but she seemed to settle down and expressed Isolde’s all-encompassing love for Tristan with poise and beauty the rest of the way. Vinke’s sterling tenor resounded magnificently throughout the evening, making the role of Tristan a real pleasure to hear.

With her clarion and resilient soprano, Amber Wagner created a memorable Brangäne, Isolde’s lady-in-waiting. As Kurwenal, baritone Ryan McKinney conveyed a fanatically devoted right-hand-man for Tristan. Morris Robinson’s rich and engrossing bass voice stole the spotlight as King Marke. Viktor Antipenko distinguished himself as the suspicious courtier Melot, and Joshua Jeremiah fashioned a vigilant steersman, but Andrew Stenson’s vibrato distracted from his roles as a sailor and a shepherd. The men of the Seattle Opera Chorus, prepared by Michaella Calzaretta, infused their scenes with a robust, virile sound.

Under the baton of Jordan De Souza, the orchestra opened with an Overture that was restrained. A fair amount of coughing from patrons in the hall during the first few minutes didn’t help matters, but the musicians and conductor became more expansive and expressive. The gloomy and haunting strains of the Wesendock Lieder at the beginning of Act III were particularly effective, and the opera ended gloriously.

Stage directions by Marcelo Lombardero told the story directly and efficiently. The sets and videos designed by Diego Siliano and video animation by Matias Otálora, originally created for Teatro Argentino de la Plata outside Buenos Aires, were ingenious. Etched in charcoal, they wonderfully evoked the interior of the ship that transported Isolde from Ireland to Cornwall, and through an extra-large porthole, we could see the expanse of the sea and the sky. In Act II, a room at the castle became a starry night for the lovers, who were elevated slowly on a raised platform to symbolize their love-ecstasy. In Act III, the scene shifted to a forlorn grotto with waves crashing onto a rocky shoreline. The only weak point was a cartoon-like image of a sailor in the crow’s nest of a ship.

Superb lighting by Horacio Efron enhanced the visual elements so that the bleak parts of the story were in shades of black and white. But when the emotion of hope and love heated up, the scenery and sumptuous costumes, designed by Luciana Gutman, became drenched in rich, sensuousness colors.

Together – sonically and visually – this production of Tristan und Isolde was rewarding and memorable.

Alas for the Mariners, there’s always next year.

Today's Birthday

Hans Sachs (1494-1576)
Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961)
Walter Gieselking (1895-1956)
Claus Adam (1917-1983)
György Cziffra (1921-1994)
Nicholas Maw (1935-2009)
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (1940-2010)
Art Garfunkel (1941)
Gram Parsons (1946-1973)
Orli Shaham (1975)

and

Ida M. Tarbell (1867-1944)
Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918)
Thomas Flanagan (1923-2002)
Sam Shephard (1943)
Vandana Shiva (1952)
Diana Abu-Jabar (1960)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1955, Karl Böhm conducts a performance of Beethoven's "Fidelio" at the gala re-opening of Vienna Opera House (damaged by Allied bombs on March 12, 1945). During the rebuilding of the Opera House, performances had continued in two nearby Viennese halls: the Theatre and der Wien and the Volksoper.

Friday, November 4, 2022

Preview of VSO concert with trumpeter Craig Morris in The Columbian

 


Acclaimed trumpeter Craig Morris will play Haydn and Penderecki concertos with the Vancouver Symphony this weekend. Morris, btw, was the principal trumpet for the Chicago Symphony for a couple of years during the Barenboim (and post Bud Herseth) era.  My preview of the concert is available online here.

Today's Birthdays

Carl Tausig (1841-1871)
Arnold Cooke (1906-2005)
Elgar Howarth (1935)
Joan Rodgers (1956)
Elena Kats-Chernin (1957)
Daron Hagen (1961)

and

Will Rogers (1879-1935)
C. K. Williams (1936-2015)
Charles Frazier (1950)

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)
Vincenzio Bellini (1801-1835)
Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990)

and

Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571)
William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901)
Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962)
Walker Evans (1903-1975)
Terrence McNally (1939-2020)
Martin Cruz Smith (1942)
Joe Queenan (1950)

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Today's Birthdays

Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692-1766)
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799)
Count Andrey Razumovsky (1752-1836)
John Foulds (1880-1939)
Luchino Visconti (1906-1976)
Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001)
Harold Farberman (1929-2018)
Guiseppe Sinopoli (1946-2001)
Jeremy Menuhin (1951)
Marie McLaughlin (1954)
Paul Moravec (1957)

and

George Boole (1815-1864)
C.K. Williams (1936-2015)
Thomas Mallon (1951)

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Preview of Portland Opera's Carmen in The Oregonian



My preview of Carmen, which opens this weekend at the Keller Auditorium, has been posted online in The Oregonian and will appear in the paper's print edition on Friday.

Today's Birthdays

Roger Quilter (1877-1953)
Eugen Jochum (1902-1987)
Bruno Bjelinski (1909-1992)
Victoria de Los Angeles (1923-2005)
William Mathias (1934-1992)
Lyle Lovett (1957)

and

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
Grantland Rice (1880-1954)
A. R. Gurney (1930-2017)
Edward Said (1935-2003)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1830, Chopin’s friends in Warsaw throw a festival “bon voyage” dinner for the composer-pianist on the eve of his departure for Paris. As it turned out, he would never return to his native land.