Symphony Review: The art of dance with Denève and the SLSO

During the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s (SLSO) “Operatic Favorites” concert a few weeks ago, Music Director Stéphane Denève reminded us that for much of its history opera has been accompanied by ballet. It seemed only appropriate, then, that when regular subscription concerts resumed this past weekend (March 16 and 17), ballet was front and center—both figuratively and literally.

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

The ”literally” part refers to the fact that for the first half of the concert, the area of the Stifel Theatre stage in front of the podium was turned into a dance floor for the Big Muddy Dance Company. They were there to perform the world premiere of a ballet commissioned by the SLSO to accompany “Picture Studies,” a 2011 suite by Kansas City–based composer Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980). That work was also the result of a commission, this time from the Nelson-Atkins Museum, who were looking for a 21st-century version of “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881).

Die Drei Pierrots Nr. 2
Photo coutesy of
Nelson-Atkins Museum

Mussorgsky’s suite was based on a collection of works by a single artist, the composer’s friend Viktor Hartmann. Schoenberg’s work is a collection of musical invocations of works by eight different artists (four paintings, three photographs, and one sculpture). So the challenge for Big Muddy Artistic Director Kirven Douthit-Boyd was to create a ballet that reflected both Schoenberg’s music and the works of art that inspired it.

He succeeded admirably. The combination of Douthit-Boyd’s choreography, Schoenberg’s music, and the polished performances of both the Big Muddy dancers and the SLSO added new layers of meaning to the original works of art. Here are a few examples.

Die Drei Pierrots Nr. 2 (The Three Pierrots Nr. 2) is a 1911 painting by Albert Bloch 1882–1961. The three figures in the painting may look dark and a bit creepy, but Schoenberg has given them light and mischievous music more in keeping with their commedia dell’arte origins. The dancing linked those two different sides of Pierrot, with a trio of women in polka dot dresses moving in tight formations that mirrored the grouping in the picture.

Repetition Photo courtesy of 
Nelson-Atkins Museum

Repetition, a 1913 photograph by Kurt Baasch (1891–1964), is the spatial opposite of Der Drei Pierrots. Here, four widely separated pedestrians are captured in their own individual worlds on a strangely empty midday street. The music reflects a less empty and more energetic scene while the dance presents us with the four isolated figures, each with their own style of movement.

Rose with Gray, a 1924 painting by Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), is all jagged edges, blocks of color, and a general feeling of edgy energy. Schoenberg’s music matches the mood of the image, as do the choreography and lighting. The latter projects angular abstract shapes on the stage that are a match for the aggressive movements of the dancing.

Rose with Gray Photo courtesy of
Nelson-Atkins Museum

It was, in sum, a memorable mix of sight and sound. I think projecting images of the original art in synch with the music and dance might have given the audience a better idea of how it all fit together, but that could also have acted as a distraction. It was a hit in any case, with both composer Schoenberg and choreographer Douthit-Boyd on hand to share the curtain call.

The second half of the concert brought us back to the ballet with Denève’s compilation of music from the three concert suites from the “Romeo and Juliet” ballet by Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953). The suites have been popular with audiences. With conductors, not so much.

In his comments before the performance, Denève noted that both he and his fellow conductors often struggle with the odd sequencing of the suites, and said he wished he could call up Prokofiev up and ask him what he had in mind. As a result, performances of the ballet suites often consist of individual numbers reassembled to match the musical vision of the conductor. Gilbert Varga did that, in fact, when the SLSO last played this music in 2016.

Denève said that his R&J suite was “a Romantic suite” intended to follow the arc of the play. Which, to my ears, it certainly did. The “Balcony Scene” was as lush and achingly lovely as I have ever heard it, with a positively ethereal end. “Friar Lawrence” emphasized the sympathetic warmth of the character.

“Montagues and Capulets” (the first movement from the Suite No. 2) was turned into two separate movements, with the break coming right after the dissonant opening fortissimo brass chords and the pianissimo string chorale that follows. Denève then jumped directly to the “Minuet” (the fourth movement from Suite No. 1), not returning to “Montagues and Capulets” until after the puckish “Masks”  (Suite 1, number V). At that point he picked up at rehearsal number 1, which is a repeat of the same ominous opening followed by the lead-footed Allegro pesante “Dance of the Knights.”

Stéphane Denève conducts the SLSO in
Romeo and Juliet
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

The dramatic impact of that contrast was palpable, as was the radical shift to the “Balcony Scene” immediately afterwards. “Death of Tybalt” was an electrifying exercise in virtuosity by the orchestra and the final death of Juliet had a tragic delicacy that echoed the Prince’s final lines from Shakespeare’s play: “For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

It was all beautifully played and conducted with Denève’s customary attention to detail. At around 40 minutes, it felt more like a symphonic poem based on Prokofiev’s score than a mere collection of excerpts. Nicely done, everyone.

Next from the SLSO: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and soloist Tom Borrow in the Piano Concerto No. 5 (“Emperor”) by Beethoven, along with the overture to "Béatrice et Bénedict” by Berlioz and the local premiere of “Pretty” by Julia Wolfe. The final performance is Saturday, March 23, at 7:30 pm at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the UMSL campus. The Saturday concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio and Classic 107.3 and will be available for streaming for a limited time afterward at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra site.

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

Symphony Preview: Shall we dance?

“Invitation to the Dance” (“Aufforderung zum Tanz”), Op. 65, is one of the more popular pieces by Carl Maria von Weber, especially in its 1841 orchestration by Hector Berlioz. It’s also a good description of the concerts Stéphane Denève and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) will perform this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, March 16 and 17).

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

Adam Schoenberg
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

The program consists of only two works: “Picture Studies,” a 2011 suite by Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980), and Music Director Stéphane Denève’s compilation of music from the three concert suites Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) assembled from his ballet “Romeo and Juliet.”

The Schoenberg work was the result of a commission by the Kansas City Symphony and the Nelson-Atkins Museum to write a 21st-century version of “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881), which in its 1922 orchestration by Maurice Ravel has become a staple of the symphonic repertoire.

Mussorgsky’s suite was based on a collection of works by a single artist, the composer’s friend Viktor Hartmann. Schoenberg’s work is a collection of musical invocations of works by by eight different artists (four paintings, three photographs, and one sculpture). The only common thread is that they were all on display at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. “My main objective,” says Schoenberg in this week’s program notes, “was to create an architectural structure that connected each movement to the next while creating an overall arc for the entire piece.”

Those program notes include not only extensive quotes from the composer but also an interview with choreographer Kervin Douthit-Boyd, whose Big Muddy Dance Company will perform the world premiere of the SLSO-commissioned ballet Douthit-Boyd created for Schoenberg’s music. So rather than write any more about his project myself, I will simply refer you to those notes.

I will, however, make one recommendation: as you read Schoenberg’s commentary of the suite, listen to its world premiere recording by Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra on the SLSO’s Spotify playlist. Granted, this music is so approachable that an advance listen isn’t really necessary, but reading Schoenberg’s thoughts as you experience his music adds a great deal to the experience.

One more thing that will enhance that experience is seeing the art that inspired “Picture Studies.” Here are the links to the works in question, along with their corresponding movements. I have excluded movements I (Intro) and VIII (Interlude) since those are statements of what Schoenberg calls a “Ghost-like piano theme” that’s a nod to the recurring “Promenade” motif in Mussorgsky’s “Pictures”.

Kirven Douthit-Boyd
Photo courtesy of the SLSO

II. Three Pierrots: Die Drei Pierrots Nr. 2, a painting by Albert Bloch 1882–1961.
III. Repetition: Repetition, a photograph by Kurt Baasch (1891–1964).
IV. Olive Orchard: The Olive Orchard, a painting by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890).
V. Kandinsky: Rose with Gray, a painting by Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)
VI. Calder’s World: Untitled, 1937,  a mobile sculpture by Alexander Calder (1898–1976). There’s more than one Calder mobile labeled Untitled, 1937, but based on Schoenberg’s description I think this is the right one. The Nelson-Atkins Gallery, on the other hand, has Untitled, 1936, so the year must might be wrong.
VII. Miró: Women at Sunrise, a painting by Joan Miró (1893–1983).
IX. Cliffs of Moher: Atlantic Ocean, Cliffs of Moher, a photograph by Hiroshi Sugimoto  (b. 1848). This and the last movement are played without pause after movement VIII.
X. Pigeons in Flight: Pigeons in Flight, a photograph by Francis Blake (1850–1913).

After intermission it’s back to the ballet. This time, though, the dancing will have to be imaginary since we’ll be hearing a good 40 minutes of music from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” suites. The ballet and the suites are quite popular today, but the story of their creation is not a particularly happy one.

Prokofiev emigrated to the West in 1918, first to the USA and then to Europe. In 1936 he was lured back to the Soviet Union with what proved to be false promises of personal and artistic freedom. At first he was allowed to retain his passport and make appearances abroad, including an American tour in 1938. But then, as Dorothea Redepenning wrote in a 2001 article for Grove Online, “the trap snapped shut: he was asked to hand in his passport for the transaction of a formality, but did not get it back, so that there could be no question of further tours abroad.”

With the closing of the trap came the imposition of censorship. Although Prokofiev had completed the score for “Romeo and Juliet” in 1936, he soon found obstacles in the path to an actual performance. And there was also the matter of the ending.

When he began work on “Romeo and Juliet” in 1935, Prokofiev had decided to give the ballet a happy ending, and his score reflected that decision. As the composer dryly noted, "living people can dance, the dead cannot". And, as Alice Jones wrote in a 2008 article for The Independent, there was also “the little-known fact of Prokofiev's deeply held Christian Science beliefs, according to which death does not exist. In Prokofiev's vision, the love of Romeo and Juliet is infinite, transcending all earthly boundaries and existing in a paradise-like realm.” Stalin’s censors disagreed, and “Romeo and Juliet” didn’t get an officially approved Bolshoi production until 1946—and then only on the condition that Prokofiev cut the 20 minutes of “happy ending” music he had originally composed and end the ballet with the death of Romeo and  Juliet.

Prokofiev in 1918
en.wikipedia.org

The original “happy ending” version of the ballet was rediscovered and performed at the Bard Summerscape festival outside New York in 2008, but the Stalin-approved version is still the one most often performed today.

As noted above, the “Romeo and Juliet” suites have been popular with audiences. But as Joshua Barone wrote in a 2018 New York Times article, “the suites, which are structured more like symphonies than tone poems, can be unsatisfying for conductors.” That includes Maestro Denève.

“I wish I could call Prokofiev and ask him what is the exact purpose of his three suites,” Mr. Denève said in an interview for the article. “With all my respect, of course, for Prokofiev, I can’t understand his logic.”

When the SLSO performed music from the “Romeo and Juliet” suites in 2016  guest conductor Gilbert Varga was on the podium with seven movements selected to mirror the dramatic arc of both Shakespeare’s play and the revised ballet. Stéphane Denève is doing essentially the same thing this weekend but—based on the number and order of the selections—in somewhat greater depth. You can see a more detailed breakdown in the program notes or just listen to the selections in the Spotify playlist.

The Essentials: Stéphane Denève conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in Adam Schoenberg’s “Picture Studies” and selections from the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” by Prokofiev. “Picture Studies” will be accompanied by an SLSO-commissioned ballet performed by the Big Muddy Dance Company with choreography by Kervin Douthit-Boyd. Performances are Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, March 16 and 17, at the Sifel Theatre downtown.

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