Review: "An American in Paris" celebrates dance in the City of Light

Garen Scribner and Sara Esty

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"'S wonderful! 'S marvelous!" That opening line of a classic Gershwin tune is also a perfect capsule review of the musical An American in Paris, playing the Fox through January 29th.

Adapted from the 1951 movie musical of the same name, An American in Paris is a big, beautiful valentine to both the darkness and the light of post-war Paris-and to the art of the dance.

Playwright Craig Lucas (Prelude to a Kiss, Reckless) and musical arranger/adapter Rob Fisher (long-time music director for the City Center Encores! Series) have assembled an impressive collection of Gershwin songs for the score, but singing definitely takes second place to dancing in this show. Director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, who got both a Tony and an Outer Critics Circle for his work here, has loaded up An American in Paris with a stunning variety of dance styles, from classic ballet moves to a brilliant pastiche of early 20th-century popular dances (in the lavish "Stairway to Paradise") to an ingenious amalgam of mid-century angular "modernist" choreography for the big title number in the second act. It's no small thing to keep up visual interest in a show that runs nearly three hours, but Mr. Wheeldon has managed it neatly.

"Stairway to Paradise"

Like the film that inspired it, An American in Paris is the story of three mismatched friends in the newly-liberated French capital: American war veteran and artist Jerry Mulligan, fellow vet and struggling composer Adam Hochberg, and Henri Baurel, scion of a wealthy French family and a would-be song and dance man. All three become smitten with the mysterious ballerina Lise Dassin, creating a romantic triangle (or maybe a quadrangle) that moves the plot along. There's also a secondary story involving Jerry's brief fling with American philanthropist Milo Davenport.

Unlike the movie, Mr. Lucas's book gives the secondary characters a bit more depth and makes Jerry less of a self-centered jerk. The original film, in my view, works only because star Gene Kelly's high-powered charm makes it possible to overlook his character's terminal immaturity. He still behaves badly here, but redeems himself by admitting as much and apologizing for it.

The cast for this tour is impressive. Leads Garen Scribner (Jerry) and Sara Esty (Lise) both have substantial ballet credits in their biographies, and it shows in their limber and precise dancing. They both have solid voices and are often eerily reminiscent of original film stars Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. Note that at some performances, Ryan Steele and Leigh-Ann Esty alternate in those roles. Etai Benson (Adam), Nick Spangler (Henri), and Emily Ferranti (Milo) are also very strong performers, as are Gayton Scott and Don Noble as Henri's very proper parents. They're supported by a versatile and talented ensemble.

"I Got Rhythm"

An American is Paris stunning visually as well as theatrically, thanks largely to inventive projections by 59 Productions that allow us to see Paris through Jerry's eyes as his illustrations come to life. The show uses very little in the way of physical scenery, which makes the many scene changes quick and seamless. That's especially effective in numbers like "Stairway to Paradise," which marks Henri's cabaret debut. As he begins to imagine himself in Radio City Music Hall, the scene quickly shifts to the glossy production of his dreams, and then moves just as quickly back to the small café set.

A similarly magical transformation happens in the title number, set to just about all of Gershwin's original tone poem. In the context of the show, it's the big ballet that stars Lise, with music by Adam and sets and costumes by Jerry. We start out seeing everything from a backstage perspective, looking out through the curtains at the conductor and the audience. One lightning-fast change later, we're seeing it from the audience's perspective, with Jerry's colorfully cubist visuals.

So, if you love great dancing and the classic sounds of the Gershwin brothers, trip on over to the Fox in Grand Center for An American in Paris. Performances run through the 29th and tickets are available at the Fox web site. Note that, because of the long running time, evening shows start at 7:30.

Why is "Porgy and Bess" a classic? Lyric Opera of Chicago has the answer.

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If your only exposure to George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward's 1935 opera "Porgy and Bess" has been the tour of the cut down "Broadway" version that played the Muny this past summer or even the interesting but flawed Union Avenue Opera/Black Rep co-production from 2007, you'd probably be justified in wondering why this is considered a great American opera. The current Lyric Opera of Chicago revival of its 2008 production—which runs through December 20—demonstrates why.

With masterful stage direction by Francesca Zambello (based on her original staging at Washington National Opera) and insightful musical direction by former St. Louis Symphony resident conductor Ward Stare, this is the "Porgy and Bess" that will remind you what all the fuss is about. This was especially apparent for me in the first act (consisting of Gershwin’s Act I and first two scenes of Act II), which has some of the most emotionally powerful moments in the opera. “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” was particularly poignant.

The cast is solid, with great (if sometimes under-powered) singing and utterly convincing acting. Baritone Eric Owens leads the way as a fully realized and credible Porgy. As originally written, the character can some across as a bit one-dimensional and simple, but there was none of that here. The role sometimes goes low for a baritone, but Mr. Owens still has plenty of power in the bottom of his range.

Soprano Adina Aaron’s Bess also avoids cliché, emphasizing instead the character’s vulnerability and the terrible threat posed by her addiction to Sportin’ Life’s “happy dust.” There’s not a lot a sexual chemistry between the two, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, as it suggests there may be a purity to her relationship with Porgy that is impossible with the brutish Crown.

Speaking of whom, baritone Eric Greene makes Crown the appalling force of nature he should be. This is a character who is all Freudian “id”—unchecked desire with no sense of control. We got all that from Mr. Greene and a powerful voice as well.

Tenor Jermaine Smith has almost made a career out of the role of the amoral drug dealer Sportin’ Life. He played the role in Lyric Opera’s 2008 production as well as in the Union Avenue production I mentioned earlier. Reviewing him back then, I praised his clear, flexible voice and dance moves that remind me that the role was, from the beginning, a kind of homage to the vaudeville stage. It’s still true.

There are many other outstanding performances here, such as soprano Karen Slack’s Serena (her “My Man’s Gone Now” was heard-rending), soprano Hlengiwe Mkhwanazi as the doomed Clara, and contralto Gwendolyn Brown’s take-no-prisoners Maria. Baritone Norman Garrett also makes a strong impression as the equally doomed Jake. In fact, there’s really not a single performance here that isn’t at least good, and many clearly qualify as great.

The chorus figures prominently in “Porgy and Bess,” but Chorus Master Michael Black’s singers are more than up to the challenge. Gershwin makes it an important character in its own right, often commenting on and participating in the action. Many scenes feature virtuoso writing for chorus members, a classic example being the Act II "storm" sequence in which six completely independent vocal lines slowly merge with the chorus to produce the spiritual "Oh, de Lawd shake the Heavens". It’s a powerful moment, powerfully delivered.

Peter J. Davison’s unit set makes the scene changes quick and fluid. Combined with Mark McCullough’s atmospheric lighting, it makes Catfish Row look rather like a decaying and abandoned prison, all rusted sheet metal and institutional ugliness, but I think that neatly makes the point that the residents are effectively imprisoned by their poverty and by the brutality of the racist power structure represented so effectively by the police and other representatives of law enforcement in Heyward’s libretto. In Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” the moment a white character opens his mouth, the music stops dead. You couldn’t ask for a more stark illustration of the racial divide.

Movement and choreography are important to “Porgy and Bess” a well. Assistant director and choreographer Denni Sayers makes the dance numbers seem to emerge naturally from the rest of the stage movement, making it an integral part of the characters. In both musical theatre and opera, dance numbers can sometimes feel like (and, indeed, are often intended to be) separate set pieces, divorced from the action. Not so here.

Praise is also due to costume designer Paul Tazewell. His earthy palette nicely matches that of Mr. Davison and helps give the show a unified look.

Ward Stare conducts the orchestra with assurance and if his tempi are sometimes a bit brisk, they’re clearly not a problem for either his musicians or his singers. Mr. Stare, as I noted some years ago, is clearly a man whose star is on the ascendant. This show will certainly be another feather in his cap.

I won’t say this is a perfect “Porgy and Bess,” but it’s so close that it probably doesn’t matter. This is a difficult piece to pull off at all and opportunities to see it done this well can be rare. It continues through December 20th in the company's opulent space in the Chicago Loop and is well worth a trip to the Windy City.

Final note: I’m not a hotel critic, but if you do make the trip up here, seriously consider the place where we stayed, the Kimpton Allegro. It’s a cool little boutique hotel and only three blocks from the opera house. The adjoining 312 Chicago restaurant is worthwhile as well.

Bernstein and Gershwin rule in an all-American Thanksgiving weekend with the St. Louis Symphony

Kirill Gerstein

Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra
What: Music of Bernstein, Gershwin, Michael Daugherty, and Andrew Norman
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: November 28-30, 2014

St. Louis residents had a great alternative to the teeming multitudes at the malls and movie theaters Thanksgiving weekend: a bracing concert of American music for that most American of holidays.

This weekend's concerts open with a fanciful bit of low comedy and high musical invention: Michael Daugherty's "Hell's Angels." Scored for bassoon quartet and large orchestra (a plethora of percussion, including the massive "Mahler box" and a thundersheet), the piece is a cinematically vivid send-up of the obnoxious noise-making that seems endemic to motorcycle culture in the USA. The composer says it's "the musical tale of a gang of hot-rodding motorcycling bassoonists who ride into town and take over a concert hall" and, in fact, that's how David Robertson has staged it. The orchestra began playing the minuet from Boccherini's Op. 11 string quartet, only to have it rudely interrupted by Daugherty's aggressively discordant opening as SLSO bassoonists Andrew Cuneo, Andrew Gott, and Felicia Foland and contrabassoonist Gregg Henegar swaggered on to the stage all punked up in black leather to play their fiercely difficult solos. The joking suggestion, in my preview article, that Mr. Cuneo, as Principal Bassoon, should be wearing a black leather jacket with an eagle on the back turned out to be unintentionally prophetic.

As you might expect from the composer of the Peter Schickele-esque "Le Tombeau de Liberace" (which the SLSO did back in 2003), "Hell's Angels" is long on visual and musical jokes and features some spectacular virtuoso writing for the soloists, with lightning runs, leaps that employ the full range of the instruments, and what the composer describes as "devilishly difficult polyrhythms." Granted, the noisy movie music orchestrations swamped some of it, but Daugherty has written some wonderfully transparent passages as well.

For me, "Hell's Angels" wore out its welcome a bit before it ended, but it was still great fun. It was also a nice prologue for another work inspired by testosterone-fueled acting out, Leonard Bernstein's "Symphonic Dances from West Side Story."

If your only exposure to the dance music from Bernstein's "West Side Story" is via the film or touring productions of the show, you might not be aware of just how brilliantly scored it is. Theatrical pit bands rarely have enough players to do it justice, so much thanks is due to the composer and his orchestrators, TV and film arrangers Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, for putting together this nine-movement suite in 1960. It's a remarkable piece, filled with tricky polyrhythms, dissonance, flashy orchestration (including an expanded percussion battery), and a raft of other touches that remind us of how effectively Bernstein bridged the worlds of concert hall and Broadway theatre.

As you might gather from that last paragraph, this is music that requires great precision and drive from the orchestra (to say nothing of the ability to snap fingers and shout "mambo" on cue). I'm happy to report that Mr. Robertson and his forces passed the score's tests with flying colors. The percussion section covered itself with glory, and they weren't alone. Everyone played with such fluid skill that it was easy to forget what a challenging piece this is.

Even in the standard repertoire, by the way, Mr. Robertson has an uncanny knack for reminding us of the dance rhythms that underlie so much of Western music. In openly dance-inspired pieces like this, he is thoroughly in his element.

The big attraction for me this week, though, was the original 1924 jazz band version of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Usually heard in Ferde Grofe's full-orchestra expansion of 1937, the "Rhapsody" didn't get back to its roots until Samuel Adler reconstructed and recorded the 1924 arrangement in 1971. The jazz band version has a kind of snap and flash that a full orchestra can't seem to match, especially when played by an ensemble as good as this one. Scott Andrews gave the famous opening clarinet solo all the limpid, bluesy grace it needs, nicely seguing into Tom Drake's "wah-wah" trumpet. The addition of saxophonists Nathan Nabb, Paul DeMarinis, and Adrianne Honnold added considerably to the '20s ambience, as did James Betts on banjo.

Pianist Kirill Gerstein played the solo part with all the technical skill you might expect, combined with an impressive sensitivity to the improvisatory nature of this piece. He freely embellished the music more than once Friday night (and even more so on Saturday), but always in a '20s jazz style that was very true to Gershwin. It was a reminder that the composer himself did some improvising when he played the work's Aeolian Hall premiere.

It was, in short, a joy to finally see and hear a live performance of an arrangement that I had previously known only on recordings.

Preceding the Gershwin and, in fact, leading into it without pause, was Andrew Norman's "Try" for piano and orchestra. Composed on a commission in 2011, the work is, according to Mr. Norman, about the difficult process of trying different musical ideas until you come up with one that "finally (fingers crossed) gets it right." It's an interesting notion, but in practice it sounded like a compilation of every "new music" cliché of the last fifty years. After 15 long minutes, it slowly winds down to a single descending figure in the piano repeated well past the point of tedium. It was, you should pardon the expressing, trying.

Throughout the evening—and especially during the last two works—artist S. Katy Tucker provided projections and a light show. They enhanced the Norman and the Gershwin, and provided some mood-setting footage from the film version of "West Side Story" as a prelude to the Bernstein. I don't know that any of it was particularly essential, but it was a nice addition nevertheless.

Next at Powell Hall: Steven Jarvi conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra along with violin soloists Jessica Cheng, Angie Smart, Jooyeon Kong, and Alison Harney Friday at 10:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m., December 5-7. The program features Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" along with music by Barber and Wagner. The concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information, visit the symphony web site.

All the hits, all the time

Steven Jarvi

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The St. Louis Symphony's regular subscription season ended a month ago with a bang-up performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 the weekend of May 9th. But they've got a final encore concert for you this Saturday.

In fact, it's kind of a meta-concert in that it's an encore program consisting of works often played as encores or (in at least one case) curtain raisers. They're calling it "Bravo! An Evening of Classical Favorites." And so it is.

Here's what's on the program, along with a few brief comments from me.

Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture, op. 9 - This was actually an attempt by Berlioz to salvage something from his failed 1838 opera Benvenuto Cellini. It includes some themes from the opera's carnival scene, hence the title. Considered radical in its time and technically challenging, the opera has rarely been performed.

Faure: Pavane, op. 50 – Originally an 1887 solo piano piece, the Pavane was later orchestrated Faure for a small ensemble with optional chorus. There's no chorus listed on the program, so presumably you'll get the orchestral version. Faure thought this haunting and stately little piece "elegant, but not otherwise important." It turned out to be one of his biggest hits.

Morton Gould

Gould: "Pavanne" from American Symphonette No. 2 – American composer Morton Gould's "Pavanne" couldn't be more different from Faure's if it tried. It's jazzy and jaunty—very much in keeping with the overall mood of the American Symphonette No. 2, which Gould wrote for radio in 1939.

Grieg: "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt – This five-act epic verse drama by Henrik Ibsen is (unlike many of the great Norwegian dramatist's other plays) rarely seen outside of his native land. The music Grieg wrote for the premiere production, though, has proved immensely popular. There's an optional choral part for this piece as well.

Dvorák: Selections from Slavonic Dances, op. 46 – Dvorák wrote two sets of Slavonic Dances (Op. 46 in 1878 and Op. 72 in 1886) as pieces for two pianos. They were so popular he was obliged to orchestrate them—and those versions proved even more popular. Every one of these works is a little orchestral gem, representing a different type Czech dance.

Open-air performance of The Bartered Bride
at Zoppot Waldoper, Danzig

Smetana: "Dance of the Comedians" from The Bartered Bride – Smetana's 1863 comic opera had a rocky beginning, but has gone on to achieve popularity world-wide. Performances of it aren't as common here in the USA, but the overture and orchestral excerpts like this one are invariably crowd pleasers. The "Dance of the Comedians" also pops up in "Road Runner" cartoons, as I recall.

Bizet: "Farandole" from L'Arlésienne – Alphonse Daudet's 1872 drama (usually translated as "The Girl from Arles") wasn't well received in its day and has pretty much disappeared since. Bizet's incidental music, though, continues to be popular. The "Farandole" incorporates a traditional French Christmas carol, "The March of the Kings."

Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture - Glinka's 1842 fairy-tale opera isn't done very often. The overture, though, one of those pieces that used to crop up often as “filler” on classical LPs—a function it still serves on classical radio stations today. Its alluring melodies and neat little solo tympani part are irresistible.

Fred, Ginger, and canine companion

Gershwin: Promenade – This perky little tune started out life as the accompaniment for a dog-walking sequence aboard an ocean liner in the 1937 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle Shall We Dance. In 1960 it was published as "Promenade." There are many recordings of it out there, including one by the St. Louis Symphony as part of its complete Gershwin orchestral works set.

Gliere: "Russian Sailors' Dance" from The Red Poppy – This 1927 ballet has would up on the ash heap of history, largely (I assume) because of the heavy-handed Soviet propaganda that constitutes its scenario. Individual numbers are still popular, though—especially this typically rousing dance that starts majestically and builds to a wild climax. I recall playing this in the school orchestra. The trombone part gets pretty hectic towards the end.

Tchaikovsky: "Waltz" from Sleeping Beauty, op. 66 – Here's one of those famous classical pieces that became the basis for a popular song: Jack Lawrence and Sammy Fain's "Once Upon a Dream" from the 1959 animated Disney film Sleeping Beauty. In its original 1890 form it's a typically sweeping Tchaikovsky waltz.

Brahms: Hungarian Dance No.5 in G minor – It's only appropriate that this should be on the same program as the Dvorák Slavonic Dances since it was, in part, the success of the Brahms dances that moved Dvorák to compose his. Although Brahms is the composer of record for the 21 Hungarian Dances, most of them actually used existing folk melodies. The fifth dance, in fact, uses a melody composed by Béla Kéler, which Brahms, apparently innocently, took for a folk tune. Copyright law was less fierce in those days.

Grieg: "Last Spring" from Two Elegiac Melodies – The Two Elegiac Melodies for string orchestra from 1880 were inspired by poems of Aasmund Olafsson Vinje. "Last Spring" is wonderful mixture of joy and sadness, with some final bars that will melt the hardest heart. Bring a hankie.

El sombrero de tres picos
by the Spanish National Ballet

Falla: "Final Dance (Jota)" from El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat) – I can't think of anything better to bring you back from the melancholy of "Last Spring" than this joyous final dance from Manuel de Falla's 1919 comic ballet. First performed at the Alhambra Theatre in London, El sombrero de tres picos boasted choreography by Léonide Massine and costumes by some guy named Picasso. The great Ernest Ansermet conducted. Not shabby.

The essentials: Steven Jarvi conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in "Bravo! An Evening of Classical Favorites" on Saturday, June 7, at 7:30 PM at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand. For more information: stlsymphony.org. Note that Circus Flora is set up on the Powell Hall south lot, so parking could be at a premium.