Dance Review: Nasville Ballet's "Carmina Burana" is even better the second time around

Photo: Marianne Leach

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Although usually presented as a concert piece, Carl Orff's 1936 "Carmina Burana" was always intended to be theatrical, with some mimed action and "magic tableaux." The first performance in Frankfurt in 1937 was fully staged, in fact, with dancers, sets, and costumes.

Photo: Heather Thorne

Nashville Ballet's "Carmina Burana," originally presented at the Touhill back in 2013, made an encore appearance there this past weekend, once again under the aegis of Dance St. Louis. With 40 dancers, 120 singers, and 60 musicians, including The University of Missouri-St. Louis Orchestra and Singers, The Bach Society of Saint Louis, and The St. Louis Children's Choirs, it was, once again, a stunning work of dance theatre that succeeded both as Spectacle and as Art.

The first (and least sexually explicit) of Orff's "Trionfi" trilogy of choral theatre works, "Carmina Burana" derives its title from an 1847 collection of secular poetry by anonymous authors from the 12th and 13th centuries that turned up in 1803 in the Benedictine monastery in Beuren, Germany. As befits their "vulgar" status, the poems celebrate not the theoretical joys of heaven but rather the practical ones of earth: spring, sex, food, sex, drink, gambling, and sex. They also recognize something that we moderns have lost track of, to our detriment: the heavy influence of blind chance on our lives. The setting of "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" ("Fortune, Empress of the World"), which opens and closes the work, reminds us that the wheel of fortune is always turning and that none of us should get too cocky, as the universe has a tendency to dope-slap the excessively smug.

Photo: Heather Thorne

Nashville Ballet Artistic Director and choreographer Paul Vasterling and visual designer Eric Harris emphasize that centrality of Lady Fortuna by making her a key character in the ballet. Fortuna begins and ends the evening surrounded by a massive, stage-filling "wheel of fortune" skirt that neatly establishes her dominance, but she also interacts with individual dancers to emphasize fate's capricious influence. Kayla Rowser was Fortuna in this revival, and she alternated beautifully between the faux-mechanical precision of the impersonal wheel and the seduction of Lady Luck.

This realization of "Carmina Burana" was, in fact, filled with striking images that beautifully complement the lyrics. Let me cite a few that will, I hope, give you a feel for the remarkable quality of what Mr. Vasterling, Mr. Harris, and the dancers accomplished.

Photo: Heather Thorne

For "In Taberna quando sumus" (labeled "The Drinking Song" here) the stage was filled with dancers in wine-red outfits reeling about in drunken but very precise abandon while the lyrics reeled off a list of the many types who come to the tavern to imbibe. The bird being roasted for dinner in "Olim lacus coleuram" (The Roasted Swan") was costumed all in white and danced entirely en pointe, as though trying to escape the flames. She was eventually surrounded in fiery red-on-white banners and carried off the stage by dancers in red. Katie Vasilopoulos danced the role this time with a sense of heart-rending distress.

The "Spring" section underscored the lyrical parallels between the awakening of the earth and the awakening of human desire with a succession of colorful and flirtatious dances. In "Floret silva nobilis" ("The Maypole"), for example, the dancers were costumed in spring-like pastels and, at one point, danced around a human Maypole. "Chramer, gib de varwe mir" ("More Joys of Spring") made the sex/spring parallel even more obvious with poses of adolescent sexual braggadocio and cheerful coupling.

Photo: Heather Thorne

I could go on, but you get the idea. The Nashville Ballet's "Carmina Burana" was a visual treat of the highest order.

Musically, "Carmina Burana" was noticeably more polished this time around than it was in 2013. Perhaps the best work came from the combined voices of the Bach Society and UMSL University Singers. Deployed on risers behind and to the sides of the dancers, they were powerful, to say the least. Elocution was quite impressive, given how widely separated the singers were, although I suspect audience members who were not familiar with the music might have benefited from projected text.

Soprano Stella Markou and tenor Tim Waurick repeated their roles from 2013. Ms. Markou had a bit of difficulty with that absurdly difficult coloratura moment in "Dulcissime" ("Sweetest One" in the program) but sounded great otherwise. And Mr. Waurick's roasting swan was, once again, one of the most dramatic I've heard. Baritone Adam Stefo turned in compelling performances of some very difficult music ("Dies, nox et omnia," with its rapid switch between falsetto and chest voice, is a real killer). His solo in "Ego sum abbas" ("The Bad Abbott") was a wonderful combination of skillful musicianship and theatricality, complete with drunken hiccups.

The St. Louis Children's Choir, deployed in box seats house right and left, were also most impressive, holding their own even through the tricky tempo changes towards the end of "Tempus est iocundum."

Photo: Heather Thorne

The UMSL University Orchestra, conducted by James Richards, sounded more robust and cohesive than they did back in 2013, a few minor brass intonation problems not withstanding. Orff's big brass and percussion sections had the proper impact, and more intimate moments like the "Round Dance" had just the right delicacy. Congratulations to them and Mr. Richards for a job well done.

The evening opened with "La Fontana," a new work choreographed by Dance St. Louis Artistic and Executive Director Michael Utoff to Bach's "Concerto for Violin and Oboe in C minor," BWV 1060, and performed by Saint Louis Ballet. As a choreographer, Mr. Utoff seems to have a remarkable affinity for Bach and an excellent eye for movement that creates visual analogs to the composer's musical structures. Four women costumed as classical Greek statues (ivory togas and coronets) suggested the fountain of the title, an image enhanced by their fluid movement. They were soon joined by three more colorfully costumed couples: the men in red-orange classical outfits and the women in flowing pastel gowns and long gloves. As the work progressed, the two groups began to interact, until, at the end, the couples became the fountain and the four women struck statuesque poses on the outside.

The movement enhanced and complemented Bach's music, in short, without trying to impose a story thread on it. It was a nice contrasting choice to the more literally narrative choreography of "Carmina Burana," just as Bach's chamber music was a well-chosen contrast to Orff's far more massive work.

Oboist Ann Homan and violinist Julia Sakharova were flawless in the solo roles, intertwining beautifully in Bach's elaborate counterpoint.

Dance St. Louis's Bach/Orff double bill will be over by the time you read this, of course, but I still want to congratulate them on bringing this crowd pleaser back for another appearance. Fully staged productions of "Carmina Burana" are rare, so the chance to see one of this quality was most welcome. The Dance St. Louis season continues with MOMIX in "Alchemia" at the Touhill January 29 and

Symphony Review: A mostly French St. Louis Symphony program highlights principal players

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson
What: Music of Bizet, Debussy, Elgar, and Ravel
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis
When: May 1-3, 2015

[Find out more about the music with the SLSO program notes and my symphony preview.]

Allegra Lilly
harpcolumn.com

This is a big weekend for the Principal and Associate Principal players in the St. Louis Symphony (and even a couple of guests). The concerts begin with an orchestral suite from Bizet's massively popular 1875 opera "Carmen" and end with Ravel's even more massively popular "Bolero"—both works packed with solos for individual instruments.

In between are pieces that feature SLSO musicians not often seen in the solo spot: Principal Harp Allegra Lilly in Debussy's 1904 "Danses sacrée et profane" ("Sacred and Profane Dances") for harp and strings, and Principal Tuba Michael Sanders in Vaughan Williams' 1954 "Tuba Concerto in F minor."

For people like me who enjoy seeing members of the band step forward and strut their stuff, it's all very gratifying.

The "Carmen" selections consist of eleven of the twelve sections of the two suites that Bizet's friend and fellow composer Ernest Guiraud put together in the 1880s. Bizet never heard them—he died shortly after "Carmen" opened to tepid reviews and public apathy in 1875—but I think he would have appreciated the way his colleague reassigned the original vocal lines to a wide range of individual instruments. The trumpet, in particular, carries a lot of the weight, with prominent roles in the "Habañera," "Seguedille," "La Garde montante," and most notably, the famous (and often parodied) "Chanson du Toréador."

Mr. Robertson's rearrangement of the order of the selections made me hear this music in a very different way. Having the brisk march of "Les Toréadors" segue immediately into the ominous Act I "Prelude," for example, created a nice bit of dramatic contrast. Ditto putting the delicate "Intermezzo," with its lovely duet for harp and flute, in between the "Chanson du Toréador" and the lively "Danse bohème." His interpretation brought out all the drama and high spirits of the opera, ending with a "Danse bohème" that burned up the stage.

A few fluffs here and there not withstanding, the musicians with the solo spots performed brilliantly. Principal Trumpet Karin Bliznik had the most to do, of course, but there were also terrific moments from Principal Flute Mark Sparks, Principal Oboe Jelena Dirks, Associate Principal Bassoon Andy Gott along with fellow bassoonist Felicia Foland, Principal Piccolo Ann Choomack along with second piccolo Jennifer Nichtman (doubling on flute), harpist Megan Stout, and Concertmaster David Halen. Mr. Halen's solo in the "Nocturne" starts at the bottom of the violin's range, and brought a dark, silky tone to it.

As the second half of the concert began, Allegra Lilly made a strong impression before she even played a note, gliding onstage in a iridescent blue spaghetti strap gown that was as lovely and elegant as her playing—and that's saying something. Soloists sometimes get lost in the fog of Powell Hall's acoustics, especially for those of us in the Dress Circle, but Ms. Lilliy's harp came through rich and clear, its full-bodied sound assisted by a resonating platform and Debussy's intelligent orchestration, which never allows the string ensemble to overcome the soloist. She and Mr. Robertson gave the music a graceful and sensitive treatment that emphasized the shimmering, shifting colors of this music. I know Debussy disliked the term "impressionism," but for works like this it feels quelle apropos nevertheless.

Michael Sanders
stlsymphony.org

The Vaughan Williams tuba concerto was next, and you couldn't have asked for a more marked contrast from the Debussy. It's a consistently ingratiating and playful piece, with a strong English folk flavor. The composer wrote it with (and for) London Symphony Orchestra Principal Tuba Philip Catelinet—who must have been quite the virtuoso, judging from the difficulty of the solo part. The first and third movement cadenzas, in particular, exploit the instrument's full range, including those growling bottom notes.

Soloist Michael Sanders did very well by the piece Friday morning, dancing with ease through those cadenzas and the rapid passages that begin the final movement. He had an appealingly full, mellow sound at the upper end of his range (which is where most of the part lies), running into difficulty only in those growling bottom tones. As a former low brass guy myself (trombone, euphonium and, yes, Sousaphone) I sympathize.

The concert came to a slam-bang tang of a finish with Ravel’s ever-popular “Bolero.”

What can one say about "Bolero" that hasn't already been said a thousand times? Ravel himself apparently began to view it in somewhat the same way that Rachmaninoff came to view his equally popular “Prelude in C sharp minor”: as a career milestone that eventually became a millstone. At least Ravel wasn’t obliged to perform it everywhere he went. It is, in any case, music that never fails to entertain—and it certainly did on Friday morning.

The individual solos were impeccable, featuring most of the same players from the Bizet. Notable performances were also turned in by Principal Bassoon Andrew Cuneo and Principal Clarinet Scott Andrews, assisted by Associate Principal Diana Haskell on E-flat clarinet and Tzuying Huang on the rarely-heard bass clarinet. Guests Nathan Nabb and Jeffrey Collins on soprano and tenor sax, respectively, brought a bit of a jazzy feel to their solos, as did Principal Trombone Timothy Myers.

Performances of "Bolero" inevitably remind me of Garrison Keillor's joke that the worst pumpkin pie you'll ever eat isn't that much different from the best pumpkin pie you'll ever eat. It's hard to screw this music up as long as the orchestra's technique is solid. That said, there's no gainsaying that Mr. Robertson brought real visceral excitement to this old warhorse and sent us all home with smiles on our faces. And for that, we were all thankful.

This weekend's program repeats Friday and Saturday (May 1 and 2) at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. The Saturday evening concert will be broadcast live on St. Louis Public Radio.

Next at Powell Hall: Mr. Robertson conducts the orchestra, chorus and an international roster of soloists in a complete concert performance of Verdi's beloved potboiler "Aida," including special lighting and video design by S. Katy Tucker. Performances are Thursday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., May 7, 9 and 10. Friday night, May 8, at 8 p.m. Mr. Robertson conducts the last of the Whitaker Foundation "Music You Know" programs, with popular classics by (among others) Copland, Elgar, Bizet, Liszt, Vaughan Williams, and Charles Ives. For information on all concerts: stlsymphony.org.

A fabulous 'Winter Fable' with the St. Louis Symphony and Circus Flora

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Looking for something different in holiday entertainment? Seriously consider "A Winter Fable," the current collaboration between Circus Flora and the St. Louis Symphony. It features great music by Steven Jarvi and the symphony—including some rarely played pieces by Ippolitov-Ivanov, Dvořák, and Janáček—and an impressive array of circus acts. It's major holiday fun.

The Flying Walledas at Powell Hall
circusflora.org

Music, as I have observed before, has always been a part of the Circus Flora experience, so their partnership with the symphony (this is their fourth) isn't as unusual as it might seem. The big difference is that here the performers are working with music written for other purposes rather than with material composed specifically for their show. Which makes it that much more impressive that the music selected by Circus Flora Theater Director Cecil MacKinnon (who doubles, as always, as Yo-Yo the Narrator) and Mr. Jarvi is such a good match for the acts.

And the acts this year are impressive. Juggler, aerialist, and clown Amanda Crockett is the star of the show as far as I'm concerned. She grabbed my attention immediately with her ingenious hat juggling routine (to the strains of Bartók's "Romanian Folk Dances") with its striking bits of illusion. At times the hat seemed to defy gravity and the laws of physics, apparently staying rigidly suspended in mid air one minute and then threatening to float away the next. There's no trickery or special equipment involved, just precise physical acting.

As if that weren't enough, her later comic trapeze act (accompanied by a couple of Brahms "Hungarian Dances") demonstrated that, like Circus Flora's former resident clown Giovanni Zoppé, Ms. Crockett is also an experienced aerialist.

Juggler Kyle Driggs also impressed us with a fluid and graceful routine using five lightweight rings and an umbrella, as did Matt Roben with his comic cycling act. Luciano's Pound Puppies—a troupe of trained shelter rescue dogs—were also great fun. They were a huge hit with the younger set, although I have to admit I found their antics pretty irresistible as well.

Acrobatic acts are prominent this year, including Shayna Swanson's athletic aerial silk specialty and brief turn with the Cyr wheel (a kind of giant metal Hula Hoop); the Poema Family's wonderfully precise, rapid-fire Risley act; and the team of Nina Chubrikova and Yury Kuznetsov (a.k.a. Duo Resonance), a last-minute substitution for the hand-balancing team Duo Mai.

Amanda Crockett
amandacrockett.com / Van Larson

Duo Resonance mixes traditional hand standing and balancing routines with a kind of fluid choreography carried out on a slick low-friction mat. Once again, the accompanying music—Janáček's evocative 1894 overture "Jealousy"—neatly synched up with the action.

The St. Louis Arches are on hand as always and, as always, were true crowd pleasers. Selected from participants in Circus Harmony, our city's only comprehensive circus school, the Arches invariably bring down the house with their fast-paced juggling, tumbling, and acrobatics.

The most thrilling moments of the evening came, as is so often the case, from The Flying Wallendas and their trademark human pyramid high above the stage. The high wire is suspended at about the level of the dress circle boxes. That means that while a seat in the dress circle area is not always ideal for seeing the action down on the stage (which, for these performances, extends farther into the house than usual), it gives you a view of the Wallendas in action that you'll never get in a conventional circus tent.

Finally, I'd like to throw a few well-earned words of praise at Mr. Jarvi and the orchestra. While some of the music on the program is fairly familiar. it is, for the most part, the sort of thing not often heard on the Powell Hall stage, so the high quality of the performances deserves to be singled out. I don't think I've ever heard the SLSO do Ippolitov-Ivanov's two "Caucasian Sketches" suites before, but here we had three of the four sections of the second suite as well as the popular "Procession of the Sardar" from the first suite. I especially enjoyed the increasingly boisterous "Lezghinka," with its flashy percussion passages. It's always gratifying to hear live performances of pieces I know primarily from recordings.

It was equally gratifying to see the orchestra given a solo spot performing the exhilarating "Furiant," the final movement of Dvořák's Op. 39 "Czech Suite"—another one of those works heard far more often on recordings than in live performances. They got an enthusiastic round of applause and deserved every bit of it.

Performances of "A Winter Fable" continue through Sunday, December 14, at Powell Hall in Grand Center. Holiday programming continues next weekend as Kevin McBeth leads the IN UNISON® Chorus in "A Gospel Christmas" on Thursday, December 18, and Steven Jarvi leads the orchestra and Holiday Festival Chorus in the Macy's Holiday Celebration concerts Friday through Sunday, December 19-21. For ticket information, visit the symphony web site.

St. Lou Fringe 2014: the Misses

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I have been a big supporter of the St. Lou Fringe festival since its inception three years ago. This year I was out of town for most of the festival’s run (June 18-22), so I only got to six events. Rather than writing a review of each one, I have decided put them into three groups: hits, misses, and flops (a.k.a. “I want my 45 minutes back”). Here are two misses and a flop, in descending order of quality.

Performance: 10; Music: 3: "Terra Camera" with Michael Hagmeier and the Illumine Ensemble – Combine a didgeridoo player in an iridescent hat and black-and-turquoise shirt, a double-reed player in a bright turquoise wig, and a violist in sparkly shoes and what do you get? In the case of "Terra Camera," you get a program of impressive performances of some not-so-impressive music.

The Illumine Ensemble—represented here by Oboe and English horn player Kate Eakin and violist Eliana Haig—is committed to the admirable goal reaching beyond the standard classical repertoire and partnering with musicians and other artists outside of the classical world. So teaming up with multi-instrumentalist Michael Hagmeier (he plays guitar and percussion as well as didgeridoo) makes sense. Unfortunately, most of the music in "Terra Camera" was Mr. Hagmeier's own, and he's a far better performer than he is a composer. There was a repetitive sameness to his music, most of which sounded like Middle Eastern and Balkan folk tunes run through a New Age filter.

So, major points for the concept, the skill with which it was executed, and for Mr. Hagmeir's interesting "Listening to didjeridu [sic] 101," describing how the instrument is played. I had no idea it was so similar to the techniques I learned as a brass player many years ago. But the show would have been better with a wider variety of music.

Interesting Premise: "How I Remember It," written and directed by Tracy Bono – Ms. Bono's memory play is based on the stories she heard from her father. She says she finds them fascinating and perhaps they are, but they play she has assembled from them has a long way to go before it achieves that state. The action jumps back and forth between the present, in which Mature Tony (Alex Saccavino) tells stories of his teen years to his Daughter (Laura Gibbons), who is assembling a family history. They're seated at a table stage right. As Mature Tony begins to reminisce, the lights fade out stage right and come up stage left, where Young Tony (Mike McPartland, looking nothing at all like Mature Tony) acts out the stories involving his wastrel older brother Charlie (Chris Ferguson), his friends Joe and Chutie (Jeremy Hyatt and Jakeb Reynolds) and his mother (Linda Daly).

Not much actually happens and the dramatic stakes are never very high. We learn why Tony never went to college, for example, but as this fact emerges only moments before we discover the reason, no real dramatic tension is built up and, in any case, Tony doesn't seem to care much one way or the other. In addition, all the performances had a kind of flatness and hesitancy that suggested a lack of rehearsal.

Ms. Bono has created some interesting characters, but she hasn't done anything much with them. I had the sense that she simply took some of her father's stories, slightly fictionalized them, and put them on stage, without creating a strong narrative framework for them. It was also not clear where, exactly, the stories were taking place. St. Louis names were dropped often, but the characters, the cadence of their speech, and the overall background seemed more appropriate to a major city like Chicago or New York.

There's the germ of a play here, but more development is clearly called for. File this under "promising, but needs work."

I Want My 45 Minutes Back: "Trial by Jury" with Act Two Theatre – It's common practice to update some of Gilbert and Sullivan's patter songs, replacing Gilbert's contemporary cultural references with ones that will work for a modern audience. For this production of Gilbert and Sullivan's one-act satire "Trial by Jury," though, director Sean Green and music director David Phillips went a bridge (and chorus) too far, dumping about half of Gilbert's lyrics and re-writing, deleting or otherwise significantly altering most of Sullivan's music.

The original operetta uses a civil trial of a breach of promise of marriage suit (a concept that is pretty much a historical relic) as the basis for a sharp satire of the British judicial system. Turning it into a TV courtroom show along the lines of "Judge Judy" isn't a bad idea, but none of Green and Phillips's updates were very skillful. The new lyrics often didn't rhyme or scan and were rarely as funny as the originals, dated or not.

The production also had a slapdash quality that suggested a lack of rehearsal and the range of talent in the cast—both singing and acting—ran the gamut from almost professional to borderline incompetent. At one point early in the show the cast and Mr. Phillips's keyboard seemed to be in different keys.

File this one under "hubris."