St. Louis theatre calendar for the week of May 1, 2023

To get your event listed here, send an email to chuck [at] kdhx.org Your event information should be in text format (i.e. not part of a graphic), but feel free to include publicity stills.

Act Two Theatre presents the comedy-mystery The Game’s Afoot Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2 pm through May 6. “Breathtaking mystery and high hilarity in equal parts, this thriller tells the story of Broadway star William Gillette, who has invited his fellow cast-members to his Connecticut castle for a weekend of revelry. But when one of the guests is stabbed to death, the festivities in this isolated house of tricks and mirrors quickly turn dangerous. Then it’s up to Gillette himself, who just happens to think he’s Sherlock Holmes, to track down the killer before the next victim appears. The danger and laughter are non-stop in this glittering whodunit set during the Christmas holidays. Winner of the 2012 Edgar® Award for Best Play from The Mystery Writers of America.” Performances take place at the St. Peters Cultural Center in St. Peters, MO. For more information: www.acttwotheatre.com

The Black Rep presents the musical revue Eubie! opening on Wednesday, May 3 and running through May 21.  “Eubie! is a musical revue from the 1970s that taught Broadway audiences about Eubie Blake, a groundbreaking American musician and composer of the early 1900s. Blake helped break down racial barriers with his 1921 musical, Shuffle Along - the first Broadway musical written, directed by, and starring Black Americans. The show helped shape American musical theater as we know it today.” Performances take place at the Edison Theatre on the Washington University campus. For more information: www.theblackrep.org

Chuck Lavazzi

The Blue Strawberry presents a Singers Open Mic on Tuesday, April 4, from 7 to 9:30 pm. “Focusing on Pop, Standards old and new, Broadway and Musical Theater. But anything goes! Bring sheet music in your key.” Chuck Lavazzi is your host with Ron McGowan at the piano. The Blue Strawberry is at 364 N. Boyle. For more information: bluestrawberrystl.com.

Clint Holmes

The Blue Strawberry presents presents Clint Holmes in Between the Moon and New York City - The Songs of Peter Allen Thursday at 7:30 pm, May 4. “Grammy Award nominee Clint Holmes – the consummate entertainer, writer, performer, recording artist, and one of the country’s finest vocalists – is back with a brand-new concert event celebrating the songs of the legendary Peter Allen. Join Clint as he unleashes his ferocious talent in the show of a lifetime directed by award-winning director, Will Nunziata (concert director for Tony Award winner Lillias White and Platinum recording artist Jackie Evancho, director of Broadway-bound musical Little Black Book) with Musical Direction and Arrangements by Michael Orland (“American Idol”). Between the Moon and New York City will traverse the songbook of Peter Allen and how it relates to not only Clint’s story but to all of us.” The Blue Strawberry is at 364 N. Boyle. For more information: bluestrawberrystl.com.

Circus Harmony presents Swashbuckle! Saturdays at 3 and 7 pm and Sundays at 3 pm through June 3rd. “Circus Harm!ony is back with their annual, full length, ticketed show. This year, it is an epic adventure with somersaulting, sword fighting, and circus.  The show features all-new acts co-created with Circus Harmony’s sensational staff and talented students. Swashbuckle! features a Pirate Queen, a sea witch, and a real parrot all after the same treasure. The show is presented in the circus ring at City Museum that Circus Harmony calls home. Acts include unicycling, contortion, minitrampoline, wire-walking and much more. Circus Harmony performs at the City Museum downtown. For more information: circusharmony.org

Wicked
Photo: Joan Marcus

The Fabulous Fox presents the Broadway musical Wicked through May 7.  ‘WICKED, the Broadway sensation, looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle.  Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another young woman, born with emerald-green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships…until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.”’ The Fabulous Fox is on North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: fabulousfox.com

The Lemp Mansion Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre and Jest Mysteries present Murder at the Abbey through May 6th. "Immerse yourself in a world full of aristocracy, old money a perhaps a touch of murder!  You’ve been invited to the dinner party held by the Earl of Grantham himself. Some would kill for the opportunity to meet the Crawley family.  They’ll all be there!  The Earl, his beautiful wife and three daughters…not to mention all your favorite characters in, and around, the Grantham house." The Lemp Mansion is at 3322 DeMenil Place in south city. For more information: www.lempmansion.com

The Midnight Company presents the one-actor show The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey by Celeste Lecesne My 4-20. “Joe Hanrahan, Midnight’s Artistic Director, portrays a detective and other characters in a small New Jersey town as he unravels the story of THE ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS OF LEONARD PELKEY. Pelkey is a tenaciously optimistic and flamboyant fourteen-year-old boy who has gone missing.  A luminous force of nature whose magic is only truly felt once he is gone, Leonard becomes an unexpected inspiration as the town’s citizens question how they live, who they love, and what they leave behind.  Alicen Moser directs. The New York Times said ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS “…leaves you beaming with joy…a superlative solo show."   And The New York Post called the show “…moving…intimate and affectionate, about the difference one person can make-and perhaps, with any luck, one show.” Performances take place at The Blue Strawberry, 356 N. Boyle. For more information: www.midnightcompany.com

Gruesome Playground Injuries
Photo: Phillip Hamer

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis presents Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries through May 13. “Doug and Kayleen meet as eight-year-olds in the school infirmary. (He tried to ride his bike off the roof. She has a stomachache that her mother blames on “bad thoughts.”) Their lives intersect for the next three decades as they return to each other, alternately revealing and concealing their injuries — both physical and psychological — as they struggle with attraction, vulnerability,  and love.” Performances take place on the main stage at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center in Kirkwood, MO. For more information: www.repstl.org.

SATE presents the Seventh Annual Aphra Benn Festival Friday through Sunday, May 5-7. “The theme for the 2023 Festival is “Re-Told” and utilizes plays from the Expand the Canon list of classic plays by women & underrepresented genders, curated by Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre.” This year’s plays are Bold Stroke for a Villain by Summer Baer, Lieblingstante, by Aurora Behlke, and reANIMA by Aly Kantor. Performances take place in the Black Box Theatre on the Fonntbonne College Campus. For more information: satestl.org

The St. Louis Writers' Group presents a reading of Aristocracy by Dennis Fisher Tuesday May 2 at 6:30 pm. “A rural man's life is spiraling out of control when he meets a lovely woman who gives him hope for the future. If only people weren't living in the tree outside of his house spying on him.” The reading takes place upstairs at Big Daddy’s in Soulard. For more information, visit the St. Louis Writers' Group Facebook page.

The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis presents Something Spoken, a series of radio plays by Tennessee Williams, Saturdays at 4 pm May 6 – 20. The plays are Something Unspoken on May 6, Case of the Crushed Petunias on May 13, and Sunburst on May 20. The plays are broadcast on Classic 107.3. For more information: twstl.org.

Tesseract Theatre presents Welcome to Arroyo’s by Kristoffer Diaz Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 4 pm through May 7th.  “Alejandro Arroyo owns the newest (and cleanest) lounge in New York City’s Lower East Side. His sister, Molly, has a nasty habit of writing graffiti on the back wall of the local police precinct. Officer Derek is a recent NYC transplant with something to prove. Lelly Santiago is a socially awkward college student who may have discovered that the Arroyo siblings’ late mother was one of the founders of hip-hop music. Two DJs/narrators/Greek chorus members spin the story in this hip-hop theater coming-of-age story.” Performances take place at the .ZACK in Grand Center. For more information: www.tesseracttheatre.com

The Theatre Guild of Webster Groves presents the comedy The Seven-Year Itch May 5-13. “In the midst of a summer heat wave, New Yorker Richard Sherman ships his wife, Helen, and their son off to Maine for vacation. Left alone to work back in Manhattan, Richard encounters a gorgeous blonde model who has moved into the apartment upstairs, and becomes immediately infatuated. While pondering infidelity, Richard dreams of his beautiful new neighbor -- but will his fantasies about her become a reality?” Performances take place at the Guild theatre at 517 Theatre Lane, at the corner of Newport and Summit in Webster Groves. For more information: theatreguildwg.org

Finale
Photo: Mark Abels

West End Players Guild presents the world premiere of Vladimir Zelevinsky’s Finale, based on the life of legendary opera composer Gioachino Rossini, May 7.  “It’s a brilliantly funny sex-farce; it’s also a movingly sad love story.  We meet two astonishingly gifted musical talents — Rossini and singer Isabella Colbran.   Their shared passion for music draws them into a passion for each other.”   West End Players Guild this season will employ touchless ticketing, and socially-distanced seating. Performances take place at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union in the Central West End. For more information: westendplayers.org

Looking for auditions and other artistic opportunities? Check out the St. Louis Auditions site.

For information on events beyond this week, check out the searchable database at the Regional Arts Commission's Events Calendar.

Would you like to be on the radio? KDHX, 88.1 FM needs theatre reviewers. If you're 18 years or older, knowledgeable in this area, have practical theatre experience (acting, directing, writing, technical design, etc.), have good oral and written communications skills and would like to become one of our volunteer reviewers, send an email describing your experience and interests to chuck at kdhx.org. Please include a sample review of something you've seen recently.

Symphony Preview: Just folks

Folk traditions, in one form or another, serve as the basis for the penultimate St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) program this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, April 29 and 30). Music Director Stéphane Denève conducts with piano soloist Piotr Anderszewski.

[Preview the music with my Spotify playlist.]

The program opens with the local premiere of the tone poem “Apu” by Gabriela Lena Frank, Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra, founder of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and a graduate of my alma mater, Rice University.

Gabriela Lena Frank
Photo by Mariah Tauger

Ms. Frank's background is one of ethnic diversity, as her biography clearly attests:

Born in Berkeley, California (September, 1972), to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has traveled extensively throughout South America and her pieces often reflect and refract her studies of Latin American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own.

In short, as Frank says in an interview for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, “I don't look like most composers in classical music. I'm not white; I'm a woman; and I'm alive... And: I'm hearing-impaired.”

The Peruvian side of her background is on display in “Apu,” as it was in her "Leyendas," selections from which were performed here in 2020 as part of the SLSO’s chamber music series. “In Andean Perú,” says Frank in her program notes, “spirits are said to inhabit rocks, rivers, and mountain peaks…The apu is one of the more well-known spirits that is sometimes portrayed as a minor deity with a mischievous side who is rarely seen.”

Like the supernatural practical jokers in other folk traditions around the world, Apu is probably someone you want to keep happy. “Simple folk song and a solemn prayer often successfully placate the apu,” says Frank, “to ensure safe passage through the mountains.” That song is the subject of the first movement, Pinkillo Serrano, while the prayer is heard in the second movement, Haillí. Apu himself shows up in the final movement, traipsing through the tuned percussion instruments and generally raising a ruckus before evaporating like the morning dew.

You won’t find a recording of “Apu” on the Spotify playlist, but fortunately you can watch Marin Alsop conduct the 2017 world premiere performance by the National Youth Orchestra on YouTube.

Since Frank cites Béla Bartók as a source of inspiration, it’s only right that the next item on the program is the "Piano Concerto No. 3", which he wrote during the final year of his life (1945) in New York. Unlike his first two concertos, which he wrote for himself (he was a formidable pianist), the third was composed for his second wife, Ditta. The hope, according to Geoffrey Norris in a 2016 article for The Gramophone, was "that it would give her some sort of legacy after his death, both in terms of her own profile as a pianist (though she seems never to have played it in public) and in the income she might accrue from royalties when it was taken up by others."

A more prosperous Bartók in 1927

That was probably a good bet. Although Bartók's three concertos have never been as popular as those of Big Guns like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, they have always had their ardent supporters. And the third concerto is probably the most accessible of the three. It is, in Norris's words "altogether of a gentler, more reflective if scarcely (in the outer movements) less dynamic mien" than the first two. "András Schiff," he notes, "describes it as 'a wise man's farewell.’" And so it was; when the composer died on September 26, 1945, it fell to his friend, the violinist and composer Tibor Serly, to complete the final 17 measures. The concerto was his last musical will and testament.

That's not to say it's funereal. Lively dance-like elements dominate both the opening and closing movements, and the Adagio religioso that separates them is classic Bartók "night music", with emotionally intense chorales flanking a middle section that evokes the nocturnal sounds of nature. And all the way through, you can hear the influences of the folk music he collected during his life.

That brings us to the Big Finale, the score for the 1913 ballet "Le Sacre du Printemps” (“The Rite of Spring”) by Igor Stravinsky. The third in a series of series of successful collaborations between Stravinsky and impresario Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (the previous two being "The Firebird" from 1910 and "Petruska" from 1911), "Sacre" was, like “Apu” and the Bartók concerto, inspired by folk elements (Russian ones, to be precise).

The first performance of “Sacre”—at the newly opened Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on May 29, 1913, with Pierre Monteux conducting—became a notorious succès de scandale. "It is arguably," writes Paul-John Ramos at classic.net, "the most famous debacle in western artistic history":

Audience members found the quiet, yet active, introduction ridiculous. When the curtain rose and [choreographer Vaslav] Nijinsky's dances began, the auditorium went into a rage, their sophistication insulted… Debris was thrown, as well as punches. The work was performed in full, but only with the help of Nijinsky calling steps from atop an offstage chair.

Later performances were less riotous. In fact, when Monteux conducted a concert performance in the Casino de Paris the following year, Stravinsky was carried from the hall in triumph on the shoulders of audience members. Today the music sounds less radical but still packs a tremendous dramatic punch, as was the case when David Robertson opened the 2011-2012 SLSO season with it.

Stravinsky in 1903
By Unknown Photograf -
archives de FinitoR
Public Domain, Link

A wide assortment of performances of both the orchestral score and the ballet are available online. The SLSO picked the composer’s own 1962 Columbia Symphony Orchestra recording for its Spotify playlist, but I find it rather bloodless. As he got older and more austere in his musical language, Stravinsky the conductor tended to treat the music of his younger self as something that needed taming.  For my playlist, I have instead chosen a thoroughly unbuttoned 2005 recording by Peter Eötvös and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie.

I have also included the 1929 recording by Monteux himself with the Grande Orchestre Symphonique for its glimpse of what it was like to play this insane music before it became a standard repertoire item. On his “Sticky Notes” podcast, Joshua Weilerstein points out that the rhythmic instability Stravinsky wrote into the work’s final moments by using “off balance meters that have 5 or 7 beats in the bar” can be lost in more streamlined recent performances. “You can almost hear the panic” in this performance, observes Weilerstein, “but in a way this recording, which is unstable and not together, has more of that visceral excitement that Stravinsky surely wanted.” For a deeper dive into the music, there's also a version of Leonard Bernstein's 1958 New York Philharmonic recording synchronized with pages from the score.

As for videos of the ballet itself, you can see not one but two recreations of Nijinsky's original choreography performed by the Orchestra and dancers of the Ballet Mariinski Theater under Valery Gergiev at the Mariinski Theater in 2008 and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in 2013. The sound and videography are great in both cases. It's as close as you'll ever get to seeing what so excited and outraged audiences over a century ago.

“Sacre” was originally scheduled as the season closer in 2020, but the pandemic put that plan on hold. It will be good to finally hear Denève’s approach to this remarkable piece at last.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève returns to conduct Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Apu,” Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (with soloist Piotr Anderszewski), and Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps.” Performances are Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, April 29 and 30. The Saturday performance will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio and Classical 107.3.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

Symphony Review: Fantasy with a Spanish flair as Slatkin conducts Joshua Roman and the SLSO

When he took the stage last Sunday afternoon (April 23rd), St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin noted that this would be his last appearance on “this particular version” of the Powell Hall stage. That’s because when the current season ends on May 14th, Powell will be closed for renovation and expansion until 2025, the building’s centennial year. When it reopens, the stage will look pretty much the same, but every aspect of it and the rest of the building will have been upgraded.

[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview.]

For his last appearance in the current version of Powell Hall, Slatkin picked a program that he described, with tongue firmly in cheek, as “very Slatkin-esque; or, as some of you might be saying, ‘oh, no, it’s one of those.’” It got a laugh, but it was also accurate in that the evening consisted of a couple of well-established mainstream works bracketing the local premiere of a contemporary piece. And, as I noted in my preview, all three share some points in common—another quintessential Slatkin touch.

The concert started with a sparkling performance of the lively “España,” composed in 1883 by Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894). It’s his most popular piece and even inspired at least two "borrowings": Emil Waldteufel's "España Waltz" in 1886 and the pop song "Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)," which was a big hit for Perry Como in 1956.

Mason Bates and Leonard Slatkin

Aside from the “ear worm” status of its tunes, the most striking thing about “España” is the sheer ingenuity of the orchestration. Chabrier tosses the work’s two main themes back and forth among the various sections of the orchestra with breathtaking speed. He also alternates moments of sharply contrasting moods, as when a delicate harp duet (Allegra Lilly and Megan Stout) is repeatedly interrupted by the brass section. The result is something of a musical soccer game with the ball in constant motion.

Needless to say, this calls for both an orchestra and conductor who are, so to speak, fleet of foot. Sunday afternoon we had both, with a crisp, precise, and viscerally exciting performance by Slatkin and the band. Enthusiastic applause followed.

Thematic material got bounced around quite a lot in the next work, the “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology” by Mason Bates (b. 1977). Based on the “Book of Imaginary Beings” by one of the previous century’s premier Spanish-language writers, Jorge Luis Borges, it’s described by the composer as “a kind of psychedelic Carnival of the Animals.”

That’s not a bad analogy. Sure, the animals here are entirely mythical if not downright outré (e.g. the Zaratan, a ginormous sea turtle the size of an island) but that just gives Bates all the more opportunity to show off his genius as an orchestrator as well as his flair for the theatrical. That’s most apparent in the “Sprite” movement, where the short, quicksilver theme leaps from player to player and even to a pair of violins placed far stage right and stage left (they’re supposed to be offstage, but that would have rendered them inaudible at Powell). It’s a bit like Chabrier’s soccer game, but on amphetamines.

The first ten of the work’s eleven movements are an auditory funhouse. Each fantastic animal has its own unique and enticing musical profile, building steadily to “Sirens,” which Bates calls “the lyrical core of the piece.” In it, the not-quite-offstage violins trade a pair of themes which are gradually taken up by the entire orchestra, leading to a massive outpouring of ecstasy. The ecstasy mutates into agony as dissonant intervals are added to the mix until it all becomes a mass of tone clusters à la György Ligeti that represent the all-consuming Zaratan.

Wonderful stuff so far, but for me the work goes off the rails in the finale, “Madrugada” (the legendary “witching hour” between midnight and dawn). Bates describes this movement, in which “the entire work collapses upon itself,” as “sprawling.” I’d describe it as overwritten and discursive. Running over ten minutes (nearly a third of the work’s 30-minute running time), it vitiates much of the energy accumulated up to that point.

Still, it was great fun for the first 20 minutes or so and allowed the musicians of the SLSO to show off their virtuosity. Even without seeing the score, it’s clear to me that “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology” is (ahem) a beast to play and conduct. A special shout-out is due Principal Tympani Shannon Wood, playing ten instruments in what looks like a section of the “drum cage” he built for William Kraft’s Tympani Concerto back in 2016, but everybody in the band had a workout on this one. That included Slatkin, who held this massive structure together masterfully.

Joshua Roman and Leonard Slatkin

This was only my second exposure to a live performance of music by Mason Bates (the first was the world premiere of his opera “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” in Santa Fe back in 2017) and I was once again impressed by his originality and his ability to engage the audience without “writing down” to us. His is an eclectic and inventive voice that is very much welcome these days. I hope to see and hear more of his work here in the future. Meanwhile, he's well represented on both YouTube and Spotify for those of you interested in hearing more of that voice.

The concert concluded with another virtuoso orchestral showpiece with Spanish connections, “Don Quixote (Fantastic Variation in a Theme of Knightly Character)” by Richard Strauss (1864–1949). Written at around the same time as Strauss’s “Ein Heldenleben” (“A Hero’s Life”), “Don Quixote” balances the former’s triumph with a mix of comedy and tragedy—so much so that Strauss saw them (according to Grove Online) “as paired works, and suggested that they be performed together.” Given that Strauss notoriously saw himself as the protagonist of “Heldenleben,” I have to wonder if he saw the Don as another side of his personality.

Certainly it’s a sympathetic portrayal of Cervantes’s “knight of the woeful countenance”, with Quixote represented musically by the mellow, resonant tones of the cello. This past weekend’s soloist, Joshua Roman, proved more than equal to the task, clearly connecting with his character’s emotional arc. In an interview for St. Louis Public Radio earlier in the week, Roman talked about the importance of “becoming the Don,” something that could be seen in his face and heard in his playing.

That said, it wasn’t always easy to hear his instrument from our seats upstairs. His tone sounded a bit thin, and he was often swamped by the orchestra. Given that I did not notice these issues when I listened to the broadcast of Saturday’s concert, I’m inclined to chalk it all up to Powell Hall’s acoustics rather than to Roman’s performance.

Backing Roman up were Principal Viola Beth Guterman Chu as the loyal Sancho Panza, assisted by Concertmaster David Halen, Tim Myers on euphonium, and Tzuying Huang on bass clarinet. The give and take between Chu and Roman in “Variation III: Dialogue of the Knight and the Squire” was a pleasure to watch, as the progress of the conversation could be seen and heard in their performances. Chu’s Sancho argues, cajoles, and finally gives in as Roman’s Don remains cheerfully oblivious, head firmly in the clouds.

Next at Powell Hall: Stéphane Denève returns to conduct Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Apu,” Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (with soloist Piotr Anderszewski), and Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps.” Performances are Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, April 29 and 30.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

St. Louis theatre calendar for the week of April 24, 2023

To get your event listed here, send an email to chuck [at] kdhx.org Your event information should be in text format (i.e. not part of a graphic), but feel free to include publicity stills.

Act Two Theatre presents the comedy-mystery The Game’s Afoot Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2 pm, April 27 through May 6. “Breathtaking mystery and high hilarity in equal parts, this thriller tells the story of Broadway star William Gillette, who has invited his fellow cast-members to his Connecticut castle for a weekend of revelry. But when one of the guests is stabbed to death, the festivities in this isolated house of tricks and mirrors quickly turn dangerous. Then it’s up to Gillette himself, who just happens to think he’s Sherlock Holmes, to track down the killer before the next victim appears. The danger and laughter are non-stop in this glittering whodunit set during the Christmas holidays. Winner of the 2012 Edgar® Award for Best Play from The Mystery Writers of America.” Performances take place at the St. Peters Cultural Center in St. Peters, MO. For more information: www.acttwotheatre.com

The Blue Strawberry presents presents Some Songs for You with Meghan Kirk and Ron McGowan on Tuesday, April 25, at 7 pm. “Let the world disappear for a while, as songbird Meghan Kirk and pianist Ron McGowan take you on a musical journey through some of the greatest songs ever written.”  The Blue Strawberry is at 364 N. Boyle. For more information: bluestrawberrystl.com.

Amanda McBroom

The Blue Strawberry presents singer/songwriter Amanda McBroom Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 pm, April 26 and 27. “Amanda McBroom has been called ‘…the greatest cabaret performer of her generation, an urban poet who writes like an angel and has a voice to match’ by the NY Times. She first came to the attention music lovers when Bette Midler’s version of Amanda’s song ‘The Rose’ hit number one all over the world in 1979. In addition to Midler, her songs have been recorded by a wide variety of artists including Amy Poehler and Jack Black, Barry Manilow, Judy Collins, Barbara Cook, LeAnn Rimes, Anne Murray, Harry Belafonte, Betty Buckley, Stephanie Mills, The Manhattan Transfer, Donny Osmond, Kurt Cobain, Nana Mouskouri, Conway Twitty, the Chipmunks and the Baby Dinosaurs in Land Before Time (she wrote all the songs for 16 Universal Cartoon videos with longtime collaborator Michele Brourman).” McBroom appears with award-winning singer/songwriter Michele Brourman at the piano.  The Blue Strawberry is at 364 N. Boyle. For more information: bluestrawberrystl.com.

Darius De Haas

The Cabaret Project and Jazz St. Louis present Darius de Haas in Day Dream: Variations on Strayhorn Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30, April 26 and 27. “Award winning singer/actor Darius de Haas (original production of Rent, Carousel, Kiss of The Spider Woman to name a few), pays tribute to a true pioneer and legend, Billy Strayhorn. Strayhorn wrote classics such as "Lush Life," "Take The A Train," "Satin Doll" and "Day Dream" and served as Duke Ellington's arranger, pianist and collaborator for some 30 years. Darius, a veteran of 6 Broadway shows currently provides the singing voice of Shy Baldwin on Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Performances take place at Jazz St. Louis, 3536 Washington Avenue in Grand Center.  For more information: thecabaretproject.org.

Circus Harmony presents Swashbuckle! Saturdays at 3 and 7 pm and Sundays at 3 pm through June 3rd. “Circus Harm!ony is back with their annual, full length, ticketed show. This year, it is an epic adventure with somersaulting, sword fighting, and circus.  The show features all-new acts co-created with Circus Harmony’s sensational staff and talented students. Swashbuckle! features a Pirate Queen, a sea witch, and a real parrot all after the same treasure. The show is presented in the circus ring at City Museum that Circus Harmony calls home. Acts include unicycling, contortion, minitrampoline, wire-walking and much more. Circus Harmony performs at the City Museum downtown. For more information: circusharmony.org

Wicked
Photo: Joan Marcus

The Fabulous Fox presents the Broadway musical Wicked through May 7.  ‘WICKED, the Broadway sensation, looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle.  Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another young woman, born with emerald-green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships…until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.”’ The Fabulous Fox is on North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: fabulousfox.com

The Lemp Mansion Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre and Jest Mysteries present Murder at the Abbey through May 6th. "Immerse yourself in a world full of aristocracy, old money a perhaps a touch of murder!  You’ve been invited to the dinner party held by the Earl of Grantham himself. Some would kill for the opportunity to meet the Crawley family.  They’ll all be there!  The Earl, his beautiful wife and three daughters…not to mention all your favorite characters in, and around, the Grantham house." The Lemp Mansion is at 3322 DeMenil Place in south city. For more information: www.lempmansion.com

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis presents Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries through May 13. “Doug and Kayleen meet as eight-year-olds in the school infirmary. (He tried to ride his bike off the roof. She has a stomachache that her mother blames on “bad thoughts.”) Their lives intersect for the next three decades as they return to each other, alternately revealing and concealing their injuries — both physical and psychological — as they struggle with attraction, vulnerability,  and love.” Performances take place on the main stage at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center in Kirkwood, MO. For more information: www.repstl.org.

St. Louis University Theatre presents Clue the Musical, directed by Carl Overlyi Jr., Thursday through Sunday, April 27-30. “The internationally popular game is now a fun-filled musical that brings the world’s best-known suspects to life and invites the audience to help solve the mystery: who killed Mr. Boddy, in which room, and with what weapon. The audience receives forms to help them deduce the solution from clues given throughout the fun-filled evening. Three audience members choose from cards representing the potential murderers, weapons and rooms; there are 216 possible solutions! Only one hard-nosed detective is qualified to unravel the merry mayhem. Comic antics, witty lyrics, and a beguiling score carry the investigation from room to room. Even after the culprit confesses, a surprise twist delights the audience. This colorful crowd-pleaser was devised by the authors of Murder at Rutherford House and other popular interactive entertainments.” Performances take place at the Xavier Hall Main Stage on the campus at 3733 West Pine Mall in Grand Center. For more information: www.slu.edu.

Finale
Photo: Mark Abels

West End Players Guild presents the world premiere of Vladimir Zelevinsky’s Finale, based on the life of legendary opera composer Gioachino Rossini, April 28 through May 7.  “It’s a brilliantly funny sex-farce; it’s also a movingly sad love story.  We meet two astonishingly gifted musical talents — Rossini and singer Isabella Colbran.   Their shared passion for music draws them into a passion for each other.”   West End Players Guild this season will employ touchless ticketing, and socially-distanced seating. Performances take place at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union in the Central West End. For more information: westendplayers.org

Looking for auditions and other artistic opportunities? Check out the St. Louis Auditions site.

For information on events beyond this week, check out the searchable database at the Regional Arts Commission's Events Calendar.

Would you like to be on the radio? KDHX, 88.1 FM needs theatre reviewers. If you're 18 years or older, knowledgeable in this area, have practical theatre experience (acting, directing, writing, technical design, etc.), have good oral and written communications skills and would like to become one of our volunteer reviewers, send an email describing your experience and interests to chuck at kdhx.org. Please include a sample review of something you've seen recently.

Symphony Preview: Pure imagination

When Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin makes one of his regular return visits to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra podium this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, April 22 and 23), he’ll be conducting a trio of works that have one thing in common that’s obvious and another that might be less apparent.

[Preview the music with the SLSO's Spotify playlist.]

Emmanuel Chabrier in 1882
Public Domain

The obvious link is geographical and linguistic: Spain and the Spanish language. The concerts open with the lively “España,” composed in 1883 by Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) and inspired by an extensive tour of Spain the previous year. Next is the “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology” by Mason Bates (b. 1977), based on the “Book of Imaginary Beings” by one of the previous century’s premier Spanish-language writers, Jorge Luis Borges. Finally, we have another work inspired by Spanish literature, “Don Quixote (Fantastic Variation in a Theme of Knightly Character)” by Richard Strauss (1864–1949).

Less obvious is that all three works share another common thread: fantasy and imagination.  The inhabitants of Borges’s literary zoo are just as unreal as the serio-comic adventures of Miguel de Cervantes’s befuddled "Caballero de la triste figura" ("knight of the woeful countenance"). And while Chabrier’s inspiration was real enough, it was his vivid imagination and command of orchestral color that made his modest work a massive hit with both the public and a wide range of important composers, from Mahler to Manuel de Falla.

If Emmanuel Chabrier’s name is not immediately familiar, by the way, that should not be surprising. He’s a composer who, in my view, has been unjustly neglected. Part of the problem was that, despite his skill as a pianist (Vincent D’Indy ranked him with Liszt and Anton Rubenstein) and taking private lessons in harmony and composition as a young man, Chabrier had no real formal musical training. He was essentially an amateur who, for most of his life, made his living as a civil servant. As a result, his output was limited.

Even so, much of what he did publish is well crafted and appealing. His “Suite Pastorale,” “Marche française,” and “Fête polonaise” deserve more attention, as do his many piano miniatures. And the wildly Wagnerian overture to his opera “Gwendoline” demonstrates that nothing succeeds like excess. In any case, “España” is a true toe-tapper that only a curmudgeon could fail to love. This engaging little work even inspired at least two "borrowings": Emil Waldteufel's "España Waltz" in 1886 and the pop song "Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)," which was a bit hit for Perry Como in 1956.

Mason Bates
Photo: Ryan Schude, courtesy of the SLSO

Imagination is practically the middle name of Mason Bates, who says that the “magical intersection between music and technology” is “a central tenet” of his work. A self-described “DJ and curator” as well as a composer, Bates writes music that pushes boundaries while still remaining eminently listenable. His opera “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs,” which I saw in Santa Fe back in 2017, impressed me with its novel mix of pop, electronic, and traditional sounds. His 2022 “Philharmonia Fantastique” combines live music and film animation to create a contemporary equivalent of Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” giving it a sense of whimsey that’s equally apparent in “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology.”

Bates describes the eleven-movement suite as “a kind of psychedelic Carnival of the Animals” in which “[i]maginative creatures provoke new sounds and instrumentation, with a special focus on spatial possibilities using a variety of soloists” and “a variety of onstage spatial effects.” Sounds intriguing, no? It’s certainly fun to listen to. I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks and sounds like live.

Strauss’s “Don Quixote” also has its share of whimsy and even special effects, such as the use of a wind machine in Variation VII to depict Don Quixote and Sancho Panza’s imaginary “Ride Through the Air” while a pedal point (sustained low note) in the double basses reminds us that they haven’t actually left the ground. Flutter-tonguing in the horns and woodwinds imitates the bleating of sheep in Variation II, in which the Don imagines that the panicked animals are the army of an evil emperor fleeing from his heroic attack. And the inglorious result of the Don’s battle with the windmills in the first variation is comically depicted by a descending harp glissando followed by an undignified thump on the tympani—after which the Don slowly stumbles to his feet (halting motifs in the cello) and tries to regain his dignity.

Richard Strauss, age 24

It is, in fact, the cello that plays the leading role of Don Quixote. His is the titular “theme of knightly character,” although the supporting roles of Sancho Panza and Dulcinea also have their own melodies and instrumental counterparts. Sancho is portrayed mostly by the viola (sometimes assisted by the tenor tuba and bass clarinet) and Dulcinea by the oboe. Both, like the Don, have their own themes, but only Don Quixote has his own solo instrument. This weekend, Don Quixote will be played by the young (b. 1983) Oklahoma-born cellist Joshua Roman who, like Mason Bates, includes “composer and curator” in his self-description. The loyal Sancho will be played by SLSO Principal Viola Beth Guterman Chu.

I could go on, but the best way to get ready for the concert is to listen to the complete program on the SLSOs Spotify playlist. My only quibble is with the version of “Don Quixote” they have chosen, Leonard Bernstein’s 1970 recording with the New Your Philharmonic and soloist Lorne Munroe. It’s not generally considered one of the best. For that, I’d go with Rudolph Kempe’s 1958 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic and cellist Paul Tortelier.

The Essentials: Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin leads the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and cello soloist Joshua Roman in Richard Strauss’s “Don Quixote” along with Chabrier’s “España” and the 2015 “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology” by Mason Bates. Performances are Saturday at 10:30 am and Sunday at 3 pm, April 22 and 23. The Saturday morning concert will be broadcast that night at 8 on St. Lous Public Radio and Classical 107.3.

Symphony Review: Lise de la Salle's Chopin conquers a dark and stormy night

Lennox
The night has been unruly. Where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death;
And prophesying, with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatched to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamored the livelong night. Some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.

Macbeth
 'Twas a rough night.

 -- Shakespeare, "Macbeth" II,3

[Find out more about the music with my symphony preview.]

Granted this past Saturday night (April 15th) wasn’t quite as bad as that, but in case you spent so much time huddled up in your basement that night and missed local debut of Lise de Salle and the valedictory appearance of Assistant Conductor Stephanie Childress with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (as we very nearly did), I can only hope you made it to the concluding performance on Sunday. Because it was certainly worth it.

De la Salle’s performance of Chopin’s Piano Concert in F minor (the first to be written but second to be published) was everything you want a Chopin concerto to be: an elegant mix of technical excellence and emotional power. Like Chopin himself, de la Salle showed a light, almost mercurial touch at the keyboard. Unlike the composer (whose understated playing was better suited to the salon than the concert hall), her dynamic range was wide enough to easily fill Powell Hall with torrents of sounds when the score called for it.  This is a Chopin F minor not to be missed.

Lise de la Salle
Photo: Phillipe Porter

Inspired by Chopin’s unrequited love for singer Konstancja Gladowsky, the concerto is a tribute to the composer’s ability to transmute quotidian lead into musical gold. In Chopin’s hands, hormonal teenage angst (Chopin was only 19 when he composed the concerto) became the basis for a moving and dramatic mix of Romantic sentiment with Classical form. De la Salle and Childress honored that with a collaboration that nicely balanced both aspects of the work.

The Maestoso first movement had a commanding sense of drama and gave the audience a chance to see Childress and de la Salle’s deep emotional commitment to the music. The famous Larghetto second movement had a sense of tragic urgency, especially in the central section with the piano crying out over tremolo strings. That made the contrast with the Allegro vivace finale, with its genial mazurka rhythms, that much more pronounced.

It was a noteworthy St. Louis debut for the young French pianist and a display of excellent work all the way around. The enthusiastic applause led to a quiet encore: Bach’s Chorale Prelude on “Ich Ruf’ zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ” (BWV 639).

Childress, making her final appearance with the SLSO this weekend, began the evening with a dynamic and crystal clear Second Essay for Orchestra by Samuel Barber. Composed in 1942, the piece clearly reflects the anxiety of a world at war. It ends with a sense of serenity and hope for the future—something that probably felt as uncertain then as it does now.

In Grove Music Online, Barbara B. Heyman describes the Essay as employing “a rich orchestral palette…well-crafted formal design, fluent counterpoint, and haunting themes.” It’s something of a small scale “concerto for orchestra,” in fact, highlighting nearly every section of the band at one point or another. Add in the frequent changes in time signatures (6/8, 9/8,3/4, 5/8, and so on) and you have a work that can make or break a conductor and orchestra.

Needless to say, Saturday night’s performance was not just unbroken but positively triumphant. There was impressive work by the large horn section under Roger Kaza, Principal Tympani Shannon Wood, the powerful brasses, and all of the woodwinds, especially in the fugal central section. Childress conducted with an authority that made it all flow smoothly.

The real opportunity for both Childress and the orchestra to show their mettle, though was the immensely satisfying reading of Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” that concluded the concert. Composed in 1898 and 1899, this collection of fourteen cameos of the composer’s friends and family was brought to vivid life by the orchestra under Childress’s baton.

There were so many wonderful moments here that I can hardly list them all, so I’ll settle for mentioning a few that were especially memorable. Variation 1, a portrait of Elgar’s wife Caroline, showcased the smooth, burnished sounds of the string section as did the majestic “Nimrod” variation (number 9), which has become popular as a stand-alone piece. Variations 3 and 5 allowed the woodwinds to show their whimsical and comic sides. The eerie sound of the solo clarinet (Principal Scott Andrews) paired with pianissimo rolls on the tympani (Shannon Wood) in variation 13 was exceptionally effective, and the full orchestra captured all the “Rule Britannia” grandeur of the composer’s self-portrait in the final variation.

During a moving tribute to her time with the SLSO that preceded the Elgar, Childress noted that conducting the “Enigma Variations” was “a rite of passage” for young British conductors. She passed that test with flying colors last night, bringing her valedictory appearance to a rousing conclusion.

Next at Powell Hall: Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin leads the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and cello soloist Joshua Roman in Richard Strauss’s “Don Quixote” along with Chabrier’s “España” and the 2015 “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology” by Mason Bates. Performances are Saturday at 10:30 am and Sunday at 3 pm, April 22 and 23. The Saturday morning concert will be broadcast Saturday night at 8 on St. Lous Public Radio and Classical 107.3.

Also on Saturday, Barbara Berner will conduct the St. Louis Children’s Choirs in a 45th anniversary concert at 7 pm.

St. Louis theatre calendar for the week of April 17, 2023

To get your event listed here, send an email to chuck [at] kdhx.org Your event information should be in text format (i.e. not part of a graphic), but feel free to include publicity stills.

Ann Hampton Callaway
and Peggy Lee

The Blue Strawberry presents Ann Hampton Callaway in Fever: A Peggy Lee Celebration!, Friday and Saturday, April 21 and 22, at 7:30 pm. “Tony nominee Ann Hampton Callaway, one of the leading pop/jazz singers of our time, has created an exciting night of songs and stories in celebration of her inspiration and one of America’s most beloved artists, Peggy Lee. On the heels of Ann's Streisand Songbook symphonic triumph, this show celebrates the 100th birthday of the trailblazing woman who gave the world “Fever” through six decades of iconic songs from sultry to sizzling.” The Blue Strawberry is at 364 N. Boyle. For more information: bluestrawberrystl.com.

Tim Schall

The Blue Strawberry presents Sunday Standard Time with Tim Schall and Carol Schmidt on Sunday, April 23, from 6:30 to 9:00pm. “Join Tim Schall (vocals) and Carol Schmidt (piano) in the lounge for a casual, classy Sunday evening of jazz standards, a little sophisticated pop and a dash of classic Broadway. Tim is no stranger to the theater and concert stages of St. Louis, Chicago and New York's Lincoln Center. Carol has a rich history of entertaining St. Louis audiences as musician and singer. Together they will help you wind down your weekend with timeless music and a lot of irreverent dry humor.” The Blue Strawberry is at 364 N. Boyle. For more information: bluestrawberrystl.com.

Chuck Lavazzi and Carol Schmidt

The Cabaret Project and The Blue Strawberry present a Singers Open Mic Tuesday, March 18, from 7 to 9:30 pm. “Chuck Lavazzi is your host, with pianist and music director Carol Schmidt. If you plan to sing bring sheet music or a chart in your own key, and perform your favorite Broadway, pop, or jazz tunes. Medium/up-tempo songs are encouraged but not required. Or you can just relax, have a drink and dinner or a snack, and enjoy the music. No admission or cover, but there is always a tip jar! All proceeds go to The Cabaret Project, a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to promoting, developing, and sustaining the art cabaret in St. Louis."  The Blue Strawberry is at 364 N. Boyle. For more information: thecabaretproject.org.

Circus Harmony presents Swashbuckle! Saturdays at 3 and 7 pm and Sundays at 3 pm through June 3rd. “Circus Harm!ony is back with their annual, full length, ticketed show. This year, it is an epic adventure with somersaulting, sword fighting, and circus.  The show features all-new acts co-created with Circus Harmony’s sensational staff and talented students. Swashbuckle! features a Pirate Queen, a sea witch, and a real parrot all after the same treasure. The show is presented in the circus ring at City Museum that Circus Harmony calls home. Acts include unicycling, contortion, minitrampoline, wire-walking and much more. Circus Harmony performs at the City Museum downtown. For more information: circusharmony.org

Wicked
Photo: Joan Marcus

The Fabulous Fox presents the Broadway musical Wicked through May 7.  ‘WICKED, the Broadway sensation, looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle.  Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another young woman, born with emerald-green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships…until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.”’ The Fabulous Fox is on North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: fabulousfox.com

The Lemp Mansion Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre and Jest Mysteries present Murder at the Abbey through May 6th. "Immerse yourself in a world full of aristocracy, old money a perhaps a touch of murder!  You’ve been invited to the dinner party held by the Earl of Grantham himself. Some would kill for the opportunity to meet the Crawley family.  They’ll all be there!  The Earl, his beautiful wife and three daughters…not to mention all your favorite characters in, and around, the Grantham house." The Lemp Mansion is at 3322 DeMenil Place in south city. For more information: www.lempmansion.com

What the Constitution Means to Me
Photo: Dunsi Dai

Max and Louie Productions presents What the Constitution Means to Me through April 23.  “Playwright Heidi Schreck’s boundary-breaking play breathes new life into our Constitution and imagines how it will shape the next generation of Americans. Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this endearingly funny, hopeful and achingly human new play, actor Michelle Hand brilliantly resurrects Schreck’s teenage and present self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women in her family and the founding document that shaped their lives.”  Performances take place at the Kranzberg Center, 501 N. Grand in Grand Center.  For more information: maxandlouie.com

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis presents Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries through May 13. “Doug and Kayleen meet as eight-year-olds in the school infirmary. (He tried to ride his bike off the roof. She has a stomachache that her mother blames on “bad thoughts.”) Their lives intersect for the next three decades as they return to each other, alternately revealing and concealing their injuries — both physical and psychological — as they struggle with attraction, vulnerability,  and love.” Performances take place on the main stage at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center in Kirkwood, MO. For more information: www.repstl.org.

The St. Louis Writers' Group presents a One Act Play Festival Tuesday April 18 at 6:30 pm The evening will feature new plays by local playwrights Jim Bubash, Laura Kyro, Peg Flach, Dennis Fisher and Richard Young The reading takes place upstairs at Big Daddy’s in Soulard. For more information, visit the St. Louis Writers' Group Facebook page.

The SIU-Edwardsville Department of Theater and Dance presents BACCHAE: reboot Wednesday and Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 2 pm, April 19 through 23. “Dionysus, God of Theater, has returned to his home to get some respect – or burn the whole place down trying! His fascist cousin, Pentheus is ready for a fight!  It’s a family feud in the House of Cadmus and it’s not going to end well.  This SIUE original adaptation is a provocative mashup of humor, horror, politics, and pop culture, exploring the limits of human wisdom and our never-ending headlong rush into the tragic. Based on THE BACCHAE by Euripides, Chuck Harper, director and co-adapter, along with Eric Ruckh, co-adapter, has taken the classic tragedy to new heights and perhaps, new lows, in their exploration of the human condition and its connection to the ethereal and sublime.” Performances take place at the Dunham Hall Theatre on the campus in Edwardsville, IL. For more information: https://www.siue.edu/artsandsciences/theater/box-office/index.shtml

Into the Woods
Photo by John Lamb

Stray Dog Theatre presents Sondheim’s Into the Woods Thursdays through Saturdays through April 22. There is an additional performance at 2 pm on April 16th.  “When fairy tales collide, familiar characters must brave the darkness of the woods in an effort to break a curse, conquer their fears, and find out if what they’ve always wished for is what they truly want. This Sondheim classic reminds us that life is an unpredictable journey and that no one is alone.” Performances take place at Tower Grove Abbey, 2336 Tennessee in Tower Grove East. Tickets are only offered in physically distanced groups of two or four. For more information: www.straydogtheatre.org

Looking for auditions and other artistic opportunities? Check out the St. Louis Auditions site.

For information on events beyond this week, check out the searchable database at the Regional Arts Commission's Events Calendar.

Would you like to be on the radio? KDHX, 88.1 FM needs theatre reviewers. If you're 18 years or older, knowledgeable in this area, have practical theatre experience (acting, directing, writing, technical design, etc.), have good oral and written communications skills and would like to become one of our volunteer reviewers, send an email describing your experience and interests to chuck at kdhx.org. Please include a sample review of something you've seen recently.

Symphony Preview: Traditional values

Back home from its first European tour since 2017, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra continues the current season this weekend (April 14–16) with a mix of works from early 19th century Poland, late 19th century England, and WW II USA—all of which use composition techniques that go back to at least the 18th century.

[Preview the music with the SLSO's Spotify playlist.]

Samuel Barber, photographed by
Carl Van Vechten, 1944
Public Domain

With Assistant Conductor Stephanie Childress at the podium, the orchestra opens the concerts with the Second Essay for Orchestra, written in 1942 by Samuel Barber (1910–1981) and last heard at Powell Hall back in 2009 with former Assistant Conductor Ward Stare at the helm. Like its literary namesake, Barber’s Essay presents a thesis (i.e., a musical theme) and then elaborates on it by altering the theme’s mood and orchestral dress and generally expanding on it in a freer version of the traditional theme and variations form.

In Grove Music Online, Barbara B. Heyman writes that this and Barber’s other two Essays “employ a rich orchestral palette and are characterized by well-crafted formal design, fluent counterpoint, and haunting themes–often assigned to solo woodwind instruments–that reflect a strong vocal orientation.” In the Second Essay, the theme is first stated by the solo flute, which is soon joined by the bass clarinet, English horn, and oboe. It has an uncertain feel, as if the composer were beginning his essay with a musical question.  Soon the rest of the orchestra joins in, and the theme begins to undergo a series of transformations. The work builds to the first of several climaxes as rapidly changing time signatures (6/8, 9/8,3/4, etc.) create a sense of restlessness—a feeling emphasized in a contrapuntal central section that prominently features the woodwinds, brass, and percussion.

This is music that clearly reflects the anxiety of a world at war. It ends with a sense of serenity and hope for the future—something that probably felt as uncertain then as it does now.

When Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849) composed his 1829 F minor piano concerto (officially the Concerto No. 2 because, even though it was written before the Concerto No. 1 in E minor, it was published six years later) he was also experiencing a profound mix of anxiety and hope. In his case, though, it was heavily seasoned with what Alan Walker, in a 2018 biography of the composer, describes as “his first sexual awakening.”

The cause of all that hormonal uproar was one Konstancja Gladowsky, the manager of an apartment building in Warsaw and possessor of an impressive mezzo-soprano voice. Chopin saw her perform in a concert on April 12, 1829, and was immediately smitten. Alas, Konstancja did not lack for male admirers and Chopin was so painfully shy that instead of pouring his heart out to her, he unburdened himself in a series of increasingly steamy letters to his friend Tytus Woyciechowski. We’ll never know what Tytus made of it all since no letters from him to the composer have survived, and Konstancja went on to marry the wealthy diplomat Józef Grabowski. So the only real product of Chopin’s repressed passion was the Larghetto of the F minor concerto.

Chopin age 25 By Maria Wodzińska
,Public Domain.

Ah, but what a heartbreakingly beautiful thing that Larghetto is. “It reaches such expressive heights,” writes Walker, “that the roulades and grace notes with which it is adorned become virtually indistinguishable from the melody those ornaments were meant to decorate.” Indeed, the entire concerto is steeped in the composer’s characteristically decorative Romanticism while staying true to Classical-era structures like sonata form (in the first movement) and the rondo (in the finale). The latter is also heavily informed by the Polish mazurka, a folk dance that so entranced the composer that he wrote close to 60 of them. There’s no cadenza as such in the first movement (although the piano plays such a prominent role that one could regard the whole movement as a cadenza), but Chopin makes up for it with plenty of virtuoso flash in the concluding minutes of that last movement.

This weekend’s soloist will be the young French pianist Lise de Salle (b. 1988), who began performing in public at the age of 9 and won First Prize at the Seventh International Contest in Ettlingen, Germany, at the age of 12. A native of Cherbourg, de la Salle comes (not surprisingly) from a musical family. Her mother sang with the chorus of L’Orchestre de Paris, her grandmother taught piano, and her great-grandmother was a concert pianist in Russia where she “rubbed shoulders” (“oú elle côtoya”) with Tchaikovsky.

Finally, it’s back to the theme and variations format with the “Enigma Variations (Variations on an Original Theme),” op. 36, composed between 1898 and 1899 by Edward Elgar (1857–1934). Effectively a musical family album, the fourteen variations are vivid little sound portraits of Elgar, his wife, and his friends. Even a pet bulldog puts in an appearance in a comical variation (number 11) that portrays the dog tumbling down a grassy bank into the river Wye and then, according to the composer, "paddling up stream to find a landing place (bars 2 and 3) and his rejoicing bark on landing (second half of bar 5)."

Edward Elgar, circa 1900
en.wikipedia.org

My personal favorite, in terms of pure orchestral inventiveness, is variation 13, dedicated to an unnamed friend on a sea voyage. The solo clarinet (presumably Principal Scott Andrews this time around) plays a phrase from Mendelssohn's "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" over an eerie pianissimo roll played on the tympani (Shannon Wood) with the wooden drumsticks instead of the usual mallets.  Elgar meant the sound to suggest "the distant throb of engines of a liner." It’s an effect that can be hard to appreciate on recordings but has a truly eerie quality in a live performance.

The “Enigma” of the title, according to Elgar, refers to “another and larger theme” which is “not played”. The composer never revealed what that theme might be, and speculation has been lively ("most convincingly Auld Lang Syne," according to the late British musicologist Robin Golding). I'm inclined to go along with the school of thought that the “theme” to which Elgar referred wasn't musical at all but rather the common thread of friendship and good humor that pervades the music.

The Essentials: Stephanie Childress conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and piano soloist Lise de la Salle in Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, along with Barber’s “Second Essay for Orchestra” and Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” The full program will be performed Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, April 15 and 16. The Saturday concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio and Classical 107.3.

There will also be a special Crafted Series performance of the “Enigma Variations” only on Friday, April 14, at 6:30 pm. Doors open at 5:30 pm for “happy hour” with local drink samples and complimentary snacks from Soul Burgers, Perennial Artisan Ales, Switchgrass Spirits, The Popcorn Bar, and All Rolled Up. Seating is on a general admission basis.

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.