Review: Do I hear a waltz?

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

Pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton

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

In his remarks from the podium before the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert Saturday night (February 3, 2018) Stéphane Denève (who was named as the SLSO's 13th Music Director last summer) said that although he had conducted the orchestra many times in the past "tonight is my last time I will do so (pause) as a guest conductor."

It got a good laugh, and demonstrated an attitude of charming good humor that bodes well for his tenure, which begins with the 2019-2020 season.

Mr. Denève's performance was a good omen as well. He conducted an all-French (and mostly Ravel) program with a passion and authority that demonstrated his love for the music and his desire to communicate that love to his audience.

The concert began with a nuanced and sensitive reading of Ravel's Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) Suite from 1911. Mr. Denève showed considerable flexibility in his choice of tempos and dynamics, often with striking results. In the final movement, Le jardin féerique (The Enchanted Garden), for example, his choice of a very deliberate tempo made the gradual build to the section's shimmering finale tremendously effective.

Based on a collection of piano works for children from the previous year, the suite is a treasure trove of auditory delights that showcases Ravel's skill as an orchestrator and offers many opportunities for members of the band to show just how good they can sound. Needless to say, the members of the SLSO did just that. The strings positively glowed in Petit Pouchet (Tom Thumb), the percussion section reveled in the Chinoiserie of Laideronnette, Impératrice des pagodes (Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas), and the duet between Vincent Karamanov's contrabassoon and Diana Haskell's clarinet in Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast) was a real charmer. There was also excellent work here by Principal Flute Mark Sparks and Associate Principal oboe Phil Ross.

Next was Francis Poulenc's sublimely silly Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra from 1932 in a completely winning performance by identical twins Christina and Michelle Naughton. Graduates of Julliard and the Curtis Institute, the Naughton sisters have been getting rave reviews around the world, and after seeing their impressive mix of technical skill and theatrical savvy, I understand why. They romped through the composer's big, noisy musical playground with a cheerful give and take that was a joy to watch, and they handled the technical challenges with ease. Watching them play the ethereal Gamelan-inspired final section of the first movement, for example, was like seeing anti-gravity in action, as their fingers seemed to barely touch the keys.

Multiple curtain calls and a standing ovation led, inevitably, to an encore that was a bravura exercise in virtuosity: Boogie for piano four hands by contemporary American composer and pianist Paul Schoenfeld. The same playful interaction that distinguished their performance of the Poulenc was evident here as well as their hands flew up and down the keyboard with a speed that often made it impossible to tell which twin was playing what.

After intermission, it was time for a new work, Guillaume Connesson's 2012 Flammenschrift, a piece that Mr. Denève aptly described as having "a punch in your face energy."

Inspired by (and using the same instrumentation as) Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, Flammenschrift can perhaps best be described as Beethoven sped up and stuffed into a nine-minute vitamin pill. The opening five-note theme is deliberately imitative of the famous opening of Beethoven's symphony, while the second theme called to mind the triumphal transformation of the symphony's final movement. There is also a contrasting lyrical second section, but mostly Flammenschrift is an energetic rollercoaster of a piece with a harmonic palette which, while obviously contemporary, is still fairly listener friendly.

Stéphane Denève
Photo by Jessica Griffin

In his introductory remarks, Mr. Denève noted that he wants to present newer works which musicians like to play and listeners are likely to want to hear more than once. If Flammenschrift is any indication, I'd say he's on solid ground.

The concert concluded with two waltz-themed works by Ravel: the Valses nobles et sentimentales from 1911 and the 1920 "poème choreographique" ("choreographic poem) La valse. The latter was played after the former without pause--an interesting choice that highlighted both their similarities (including some identical thematic material) and their differences.

Originally composed as a solo piano work, Valses nobles et sentimentales was intended by Ravel as an homage to a set of piano pieces Shubert had written nearly a century earlier: the Valses sentimentales from 1823 and the Valses nobles from 1826. As such, it's a graceful and often tender tribute to the classic Viennese waltz, and it got an appropriately loving performance from Mr. Denève. The Épilog, which recapitulates themes from the previous seven short sections, had an almost dreamy quality, as though the composer had fallen asleep with the waltzes spinning around in his head.

Paired with La valse, though, the dream eventually turns into a nightmare.

Like the earlier work, La valse started out life as a loving tribute to life in three-quarter time, with the simple title Vien (Vienna). But before it could be completed, World War I and the death of the composer's mother intervened. Vien had now become La valse, a work that begins in darkness in the bassoons and low strings, rises to ecstatic heights, and finally crashes to the ground in what has always sounded to me like the musical depiction of the collapse of the complex structure of 19th-century Europe in the so-called "war to end all wars".

Mr. Denève's La valse was dramatic, subtly shaded and exceptionally effective. I liked the way he slowed Ravel's machinery down just a bit before the final moments; it made that crashing finale that much more sinister. The orchestra sounded splendid and the entire performance was, for me, a huge success.

Stéphane Denève is, as I noted when I first saw him perform back in 2011, a very charismatic conductor who takes an obvious joy in his work. His combination of precision and vigor on the podium will, I think, make him a worth successor to (as the Brits might say) our right trusty and well-beloved David Robertson.

Next at Powell Hall: Bramwell Tovey conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Chorus, and Children's Chorus Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, February 9 - 11. The program consists of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Orff's Carmina Burana. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. More information is available at the SLSO web site, as always.

Intimations of mortality

Photo: Ken Howard

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Who: Opera Theatre of St. Louis
What: Dialogues of the Carmelites by Francis Poulenc
When: June 18–28, 2014
Where: The Loretto-Hilton Center

On July 17th, 1794, the sixteen women of the monastery of the Carmel of Compiègne in France were guillotined by the revolutionary government for refusing to abandon their vows and their community. The execution, which is widely believed to have been instrumental in bringing about the end of the Reign of Terror ten days later, inspired a novella, a play, and finally, Francis Poulenc's opera "Dialogues of the Carmelites" in 1953.

Opera Theatre's production is a good one, but I have to confess that I don't find the text of "Dialogues" all that persuasive. Adapted by the composer from the play by French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos (which was itself based the novella "The Last One at the Scaffold” by the German author Gertrud von Le Fort), the libretto far too often descends in to a mere recitation of Catholic dogma. Furthermore, as Erica Jeal noted in her review of a Royal Opera House production last month, "some of Poulenc's scenes linger beyond their usefulness to the story."

The story centers on Blanche de la Force, a young woman so consumed with fear that she screams at shadows. In an effort to escape her dread of life, she joins the convent, even though the mother superior, Madame de Croissy, is unsure of her motivation.

Kelly Kaduce
Photo: Ken Howard

Blanche soon becomes friends with cheerful (if absurdly naïve) Sister Constance and starts to settle into convent life—only to have her world turned upside down when the Reign of Terror seizes the monastery's assets and demands that the nuns abandon their community and become ordinary citizens. They refuse, deciding instead to take a vow of martyrdom. Blanche panics and runs at the last minute, but returns in the final scene to embrace death along with her compatriots.

That scene is easily the most riveting the opera. Poulenc has the nuns, now wearing the secular clothes forced on them by their jailers, singing "Salve Regina" as, one by one, they are led to the scaffold and executed. The choir becomes smaller and smaller until only Blanche is left. Her death is followed by two soft, mournful chords, a final note in the low strings, and silence.

Christine Brewer and nuns
Photo: Ken Howard

Following what appears to be a recent trend in productions of this opera, stage director Robin Guarino keeps the nuns on stage for their death scene. They all sign their character names on the upstage wall in charcoal and then walk, one by one, into the large rectangular set piece that is used for most of the interior scenes. As the blade descends (an unnervingly realistic sound effect from the percussion section), each singer drops her head to her chest and takes a seat at a bench inside the rectangle. At the end the benches are filled with downcast nuns, forever silent. Curtain.

It's a potent image and while I would have preferred the empty stage implied by the libretto to mirror the silence in the orchestra, I have to admit that it works. Indeed, the production generally makes good dramatic choices. Andrew Lieberman's stark set—there is nothing on stage aside from that big rectangular box, which shifts easily on wheels to suggest scene changes—emphasizes the stark choices available to the nuns and allows an uninterrupted dramatic flow.

The cast of this production is excellent, all the way down to the smallest parts. There are far too many of them (twenty-seven named roles) for me to list them all, so I'll concentrate on the principals.

L-R: Kelly Kaduce and Ashley Emerson
Photo: Ken Howard

Soprano Kelly Kaduce adds another feather to her already plumage-heavy cap as Blanche, credibly portraying the character's fear and doubt. Soprano Ashley Emerson is equally persuasive, making Sister Constance's simple faith charming rather than foolish (as it might seem in lesser hands). Both women sing like angels.

Contralto Meredith Arwady brings impressive vocal power and impeccable diction to the role of Madame de Croissy. Her death scene, in which her faith fails her at the end, was as harrowing as it should be. Local favorite Christine Brewer is also a vocal powerhouse as the replacement Prioress Madame Lidoine, who leads her charges to martyrdom.

Making her OTSL debut as Mother Marie, who becomes Blanche's mentor, mezzo Daveda Karanas has an arresting presence that makes it impossible not to watch her when she's on stage. She matches that with a fine, clear voice.

L-R: Meredith Arwady and Daveda Karanas
Photo: Ken Howard

Making his second appearance in the OTSL pit, former St. Louis Symphony Resident Conductor Ward Stare leads the orchestra in a forceful and impassioned reading of Poulenc's wonderfully transparent and appealing score. Some critics have compared it to film music in the way it supports and underlines the action on stage. It's not a bad analogy and, in fact, there is a cinematic quality to this production with its fluid scene changes and James F. Ingalls's dramatic lighting.

I find the theological and historical perspective of "Dialogues of the Carmelites" suspect at best and somewhat appalling at worst. The libretto glosses over the real oppression that led to the revolution—along with the Church's support for that oppression—and dotes on death in a way that frankly becomes a bit creepy. But maybe that's just because I'm a lapsed Catholic; your mileage, as they say, may vary.

The important point is that Opera Theatre is making a very strong case for "Dialogues of the Carmelites." Performances continue through June 28th at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus. To get the full festival experience, come early and have a picnic supper on the lawn or under the refreshment tent. You can bring your own food or purchase a gourmet supper in advance from Ces and Judy's. Drinks are available on site as well, or you can bring your own. For more information: experienceopera.org.