Tanglewood 2019, Part 3: A big finish

I spent the last weekend in July at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the scenic Berkshires as part of a group of two dozen music critics attending the annual meeting of the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA). It was a Wagner weekend, with three of the four concerts on our schedule dedicated to a complete concert performance of Die Walküre: Act I on Saturday night and Acts II and III in separate concerts on Sunday. Not surprisingly, the Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI) sessions we attended were focused entirely on Wagner and his world.

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The Linde Center at Tanglewood, home to most
of our TLI events
Photo by Robert Benson

Sunday, July 28th, was my final day at Tanglewood and a big one for lovers of the operas of Wagner.

Following an MCANA business meeting was a panel discussion with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood on the challenges facing American orchestras today and the creative ways those orchestras are meeting them. Moderated by WBUR's Keith Powers, the blue-ribbon panel consisted of BSO CEO Mark Volpe, Tanglewood Learning Institute Sue Elliott, Tanglewood artistic director Anthony Fogg, and Symphony Magazine managing editor Jennifer Melick. It was informative and frank, dealing in a forthright manner with a number of questions, including the difficult exit of former BSO music director James Levine.

The end of Die Walküre, Act II
Photo by Hilary Scott

Next, it was a quick dash across campus to the intimate Tanglewood Theatre for an entertaining look at "Wagner and Humor." The session wasn't so much about the humor in Wagner's work (although there is plenty of it in Die Meistersinger) as it was about the ways the composer and his music have been lampooned and parodied ever since he rose to prominence in the late 19th century.

Not surprisingly, there was a lot of material to cover in only an hour.

Stephanie Blythe and James Rutherford
Photo by Hilary Scott

The 19th-century editorial cartoons mocking the composer's pretensions ran the gamut from clever to crass, and there was at least one very welcome musical discovery: an 1880 piece for piano four hands by Gabriel Fauré and André Messager, titled Les Souvenirs de Bayreuth, that turns some of Wagner's most dramatic themes into what Jeremy Grimshaw (at allmusic.com) describes as "danceable ditties and overripe rhapsodies that sometimes border on the maudlin." Although Fauré and Messager were great admirers of Wagner, they apparently couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a bit of fun at his expense.

Some of my own favorite Wagner parodies were sampled, including Peter Schickele's Last Tango in Bayreuth for four bassoons and Anna Russell's legendary survey of the Ring cycle. And there was a complete showing of the Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd classic What's Opera, Doc? with its visual and musical send-ups of The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, and (of course) the Ring. Perhaps the most ridiculous bit of video, though, was a "Ride of the Valkyries" performed by a madcap musical duo known as The Melodica Men. It must be seen to be believed. Fortunately, it's on their YouTube channel.

Christine Goerke and Simon O'Neill
Photo by Hilary Scott

Up next was Act II of Die Walküre, as soprano Christine Goerke (Brünnhilde), mezzo Stephanie Blythe (Fricka), and bass-baritone James Rutherford (Wotan) joined soprano Amber Wagner (Sieglinde), tenor Simon O'Neill (Siegmund), and bass Franz-Josef Selig (Hunding). There's plenty of family drama in the second act, as Fricka expresses her outrage that Wotan is condoning not only adultery but incest as well. She browbeats him into upholding the sanctity of marriage by letting Hunding kill Siegmund, even though Wotan had hoped Siegmund would be the hero who would save Valhalla from the descendants of Alberich. When Brünnhilde (who, like all the Valkyries, is a daughter of Wotan and the earth goddess Erda) violates Wotan's orders and tries to save Siegmund, Wotan kills Hunding after having allowed him to kill Siegmund and storms off to punish his errant daughter.

James Rutherford, Andris Nelsons, Christine Goerke
Photo by Hilary Scott

This is strong stuff, and it got truly gripping performances from all concerned. Ms. Wagner, Mr. O'Neill, and Mr. Selig continued the fine work they displayed on the previous night's performance of Act I. Ms. Blythe was a regal presence as Fricka, displaying an impressively wide vocal range with powerful low notes. The same was true of Mr. Rutherford's conflicted, heaven-storming Wotan. As Brünnhilde, Ms. Goerke displayed a touching vulnerability and soaring, clear voice. The Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra played splendidly under the baton of Andris Nelsons.

Next was the dinner break, during which members of MCANA were treated to sandwiches and a showing of the 2010 documentary Wagner and Me, in which actor and writer Stephen Fry combines a backstage look at Bayreuth with an examination of the difficulty of separating Wagner's music from the composer's own antisemitism and the appropriation of his music by the Nazis. I saw the film when it first came out, but Fry's wit and wisdom are always worth another visit.

The Tanglewood Shed
Photo by Fred Collins

The evening concluded with the final act of Die Walküre, including an electrifying performance of the famous "Ride of the Valkyries" featuring eight stunning singers as Brünnhilde's warrior sisters. They were: sopranos Jessica Faselt (Helmwige), Wendy Bryn Harmer (Ortlinde), and Kelly Cae Hogan (Gerhilde) along with mezzos Eve Gigliotti (Siegrune), Dana Beth Miller (Grimgerde), Ronnita Miller (Schwertleite), Mary Phillips (Rossweisse), and Renée Tatum (Waltraute). Fronting the massive orchestra in full battle cry, they were overwhelming in the best possible way. Mr. Rutherford and Ms. Goerke gave us a beautifully touching "Wotan's farewell" scene to bring the concert series to a rewarding close.

Tanglewood 2019, Part 2: A mighty wind

I spent the last weekend in July at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the scenic Berkshires as part of a group of two dozen music critics attending the annual meeting of the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA). It was a Wagner weekend, with three of the four concerts on our schedule dedicated to a complete concert performance of Die Walküre: Act I on Saturday night and Acts II and III in separate concerts on Sunday. Not surprisingly, the Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI) sessions we attended were focused entirely on Wagner and his world.

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Andris Nelsons
Photo courtesy of Boston Symphony Orchestra

Saturday, July 27th, began with Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons conducting an open rehearsal of Act III of Die Walküre with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. Opportunities to "look under the hood" like this are always fascinating, and this one was no exception, as Mr. Nelsons polished up moments that, in the actual concert, would take a back seat to the singers.

It was a reminder of how much the orchestra advances and comments on the story in Wagner's "Ring" operas through the composer's ingenious use of leitmotifs , those short musical phrases associated with specific characters and concepts. The way in which Wagner maintained a massive database of these themes in his head and manipulated them through the entire 17 hours of the "Ring" cycle never fails to astonish me. Wagner may have been an awful human being, but there's no gainsaying the brilliance of his art.

A word about the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra is in order. The TMC is a summer academy for young (primarily college-age) musicians founded by the legendary BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky as the Berkshire Music Center in 1940. The organization continued to thrive under subsequent BSO Music Directors like Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf, and James Levine, with input from luminaries such as Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Leon Fleisher. Today, as the BSO web site proudly proclaims, "20 percent of the members of American symphony orchestras, and 30 percent of all first-chair players, studied at the TMC."

So, not surprisingly, the kids played like real pros at the rehearsal. I was especially taken with the brass section.

Wagner tuba

Speaking of which: a lunch with members of the orchestra was followed by a session on "Sonic Bridges: Wagner and Brass Instruments," once again led by the redoubtable Sue Elliott. As an old low brass guy (trombone, euphonium, Sousaphone), I very much enjoyed learning about the creative ways in which Wagner used familiar brass instruments like the horn, as well as his use of unusual instruments like the contrabass tuba (used primary for scenes with the giants in Das Rheingold), the Stierhorn (a valveless horn dating back to the Middle Ages), and the bass trumpet.

Wagner even went to far as to have a special instrument built that now bears his name: the Wagner tuba. Inspired by a visit to the workshop of noted Parisian instrument-maker Adolphe Saxe, the Wagner tuba was constructed to the composer's specifications by the Moritz firm in Berlin. It looks rather like my old friend the euphonium but has a range similar to that of a French horn, with which it shares the same conical mouthpiece.

To this day, the Wagner tuba is rarely heard outside of the "Ring" operas, although Bruckner calls for it in his later symphonies, as does Richard Strauss in his Alpine Symphony. As a result, Ms. Elliott pointed out, orchestras usually keep some Wagner tubas on hand since the French horn players who usually play the instrument are unlikely to have one of their own.

L-R: Franz-Josef Selig, Amber Wager,
Andris Nelsons, Simon O'Neill
Photo courtesy of Boston Symphony

The big event of the day, though, was the concert version of Act I of Die Walküre that night. The first act is the story of how Siegmund stumbles into the home of Sieglinde, his twin sister from whom he has been separated since birth and whom he does not recognize. Sieglinde's husband, Hunding, has been hunting Siegmund and challenges him to a fight to the death in the morning. Siegmund and Sieglinde fall in love. Sieglinde drugs Hunding and flees with Siegmund, but not before the latter plucks a magical sword from the trunk of a tree in Hunding's house.

Yes, that sounds absurd, but with Wagner's music and libretto it becomes a gripping story of overwhelming passion and heroic determination, especially when performed by a cast as strong as this one. As Sieglinde and Siegmund, soprano Amber Wagner and tenor Simon O'Neill displayed credible passion and sang with stunning power. Bass Franz-Josef Selig radiated gravitas as Hunding and sang with authority. Andris Nelsons led the students of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in a rousing account of the score. I could not have been happier.

Review: Both sides now

L-R: Celeste Golden Boyer, Elizabeth Joy Roe,
Melissa Brooks
Photo by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

There were only two works on the program Friday night (October 19, 2018) at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. They were both from the 19th century German repertoire, and they could hardly have been more different.

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

The concert opened with what may be Beethoven's least often heard concerto, the Concerto in C major for Violin, Cello, Piano and Orchestra, op. 56, a.k.a the "Triple Concerto." Composed between 1803 and 1804, when Beethoven was also working on (among others) the Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica") and the Piano Sonata No. 32 ("Appassionata"), the Triple Concerto tends to get overlooked and even dissed as second rate.

I think that's unfair to this engaging work. Yes, there's not much of the Olympian Beethoven of legend here--the work is more genial than it is a work of genius--but it's still delightful to hear, at least when it's presented with the kind of elegance and virtuosity I heard Friday night.

Soloists Celeste Golden Boyer (SLSO Second Associate Concertmaster) and Melissa Brooks (SLSO Associate Principal Cello) joined pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe (who made such a splash here in 2016) in a performance that was stylish, bracing, and altogether irresistible. The violin and cello do most of the heavy lifting in the work, and Ms. Boyer and Ms. Brooks carried their respective parts off with great finesse and concentration. I thought Ms. Brooks was especially touching in the tender second movement but, in truth, all three performers were in fine form. Up on the podium, guest conductor Jun Märkl neatly sculpted phrases and found plenty of variety in Beethoven's music.

After intermission, the number of players on stage increased from around 50 to well over 100 as Mr. Märkl conducted the orchestra in the local premiere of his own arrangement of orchestral excerpts from Wagner's operatic tetralogy "Der Ring Des Nibelungen" ("The Ring of the Nibelungs"). The full "Ring" cycle runs over 15 hours and is usually performed over the course of four days, so producing a distillation that runs around 45 minutes is no mean feat, but Mr. Märkl has done it quite effectively.

Condutor Jun Märkl
Photo by Christian Hohne

Titled "The Ring: An Orchestral Journey," the suite consists of nine movements, played without pause. It leans heavily on selections associated with the love story of the hero Siegfried and the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, but even so listeners familiar with the original operas will find most of the "greatest hits" here. That includes the opening sequence at the bottom of the Rhine, the descent into Nibelheim with its tuned anvils, the "Ride of the Valkyries," Siegfried's Rhine journey and funeral music, and the final moments of Brünnhilde's "immolation scene," in which Valhalla burns down and the Age of the Gods ends.

Hearing some of these selections so close to each other also highlighted the thematic unity of Wagner's work--something that is not always quite as obvious in a three-hour opera. "I made this arrangement," notes Mr. Märkl in the SLSO program book, "to present the colorful and rich orchestral structures that are easily overlooked in opera performances, and to allow audiences to appreciate this great music in the concert hall." I'd say he succeeded completely in that goal. Even if your only knowledge of the "Ring" operas comes from "What's Opera, Doc?" ("Kill da waaaabit!"), I think you'll find this orchestral synthesis powerful and totally engrossing.

Wagner's massive orchestra makes equally massive demands on all the musicians, and on Friday night the SLSO proved more than equal to the challenge. The large brass section--18 players, including nine horn players, four of whom doubled on Wagner tubas--performed as heroically as Siegfried himself, and so did the percussionists. The dark sonorities of the Wagner tubas (Todd Bowermaster, Tricia Jöstlein, Cara Kizer, and Young Kim), in combination with Cally Banham's English horn and Tzuying Huang's bass clarinet, added weight to Siegfried's funeral music. The orchestra shouted, in short, as beautifully as it whispered. This really was one of those performances that could only be appreciated live.

Next at Powell Hall: Jim Hynes conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and jazz trumpeter Chris Botti on Friday, October 26, at 7:30 pm. Then Nicholas McGegan conducts the orchestra, chorus, and vocal soloists in a performance of Haydn's oratorio "The Creation" on Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm, October 27 and 28. The performances take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Symphony Preview: Triple threat

Beethoven in heroic mode

The concerts this weekend (October 19-21) by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra bring us some of the best-known music of Wagner and one of the least-known concertos of Beethoven.

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The Beethoven in question is the Concerto in C major for Violin, Cello, Piano and Orchestra, op. 56, a.k.a the "Triple Concerto." Composed in 1803 and 1804, the concerto comes from a very productive time in Beethoven's life. "At the same time," notes Emmanuel Music Aristic Director Ryan Turner, "he was composing the 'Eroica' Symphony, the 'Waldstein' and the 'Appassionata' piano sonatas, and the first of the 'Razumovsky' quartets." And yet performances of the piece are relatively rare. The SLSO, for example, hasn't programmed it since 2002.

Part of the problem might be that the first public performances of the work were less than successful, as Levi Hammer points out in a graduate thesis at my alma mater, Rice University. "The first [performance] took place in Leipzig in 1808," he writes, "and the account in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung is far from positive, probably due to a poor performance. The second public performance was in Vienna, and was also poorly received because 'the performers took it too casually.'" The concerto was not heard again until 1830, and has suffered from relative neglect ever since.

Anton Schindler

Beethoven's biographer Anton Schindler opined (in "Beethoven As I Knew Him," initially published in 1840 and then revised substantially in 1860) that the problem for not only the Triple Concerto but other Beethoven piano works as well was a change in the style of keyboard writing. "The principal cause of neglect," he wrote "was a change in the style of playing introduced by Hummel, Moscheles, Czerny, and others. This new style was totally foreign to Beethoven's music, both in form and in material." Writing for The Guardian, Tom Service suggests that bad performances might also have been an issue, at least since the invention of recorded sound. "It's one of those pieces," he writes, "that never seems to get a performance that does it justice. Usually, you get po-faced seriousness when a big orchestra and three star names try to out-do each other, as the cello, violin, and piano soloists fight for the limelight."

Other writers have pointed out that the material itself has gotten the reputation (unjustified, to my ears) of being what Peter J. Lawson at MusicWeb International calls "Division 2 Beethoven". Jerry Dubins articulates that point of view pretty clearly in a review  of a 2010 recording of the piece at ArchivMusic:

But it's the musical material itself, the content of the piece more than anything else, that is seen as the Triple Concerto's greatest liability, and what has led many to try to ignore it as the elephant in the room. Ceaseless scales and arpeggios pepper the pages of its first movement, often sounding like a blueprint for Terry Riley's In C. The slow movement, achingly beautiful but way too short, segues into the concluding rollicking Rondo, which is way too long, without having achieved a sense of completion or closure.

Having just listened to the work again recently, I can't really agree with that assessment. The first movement has true elegance, the second tranquil beauty, and the third cheerful charm. Perhaps the real issue with the Triple Concerto, is that, as Tim Munro suggests in his program notes "[p]osterity loves 'titanic' Beethoven. The lovable Triple often gets lost in the shuffle." There's at least as much geniality as genius in this music, which I see as a big plus.

Performing the Triple Concerto this weekend will be two members of the home team along with a visiting player who hit a homer on her first appearance here. Joining SLSO Second Associate Concertmaster Celeste Golden Boyer and SLSO Associate Principal Cello Melissa Brooks will be pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe, who appeared here for the first (and so far, only) time in November 2016. Back then she was a late substitute for Olga Kern as the soloist in Barber's Piano Concerto (with Leonard Slatkin on the podium), and, as I wrote in my review, she "proved to be more than equal to the work's technical challenges, tearing the place up with a display of steely power." Ms. Boyer and Ms. Brooks have also done some exemplary solo work on the Powell Hall stage in the past, so it will be interesting to see how they blend together Friday night.

The only other work on the program this weekend is "The Ring: An Orchestral Journey," an arrangement of important themes from Wagner's operatic "Ring" cycle by guest conductor Jun Märkl. Here's how Mr. Märkl describes the concept in the SLSO program book:

I have created a musical journey through the Ring cycle, following the story through the order of the operas. It is played continuously, like a tone poem. The music flows from the opening, at the depths of the river Rhein, to the end, in the floods of that same river. I made this arrangement to present the colorful and rich orchestral structures that are easily overlooked in opera performances, and to allow audiences to appreciate this great music in the concert hall.

Jun Märkl
Photo by Christina Hohne

The story of the "Ring" is an epic fantasy that spans three generations and tells the tale of a cursed ring of power that grants its holder world dominion--but at a terrible cost. Supernatural creatures abound, including dwarves, giants, demigods, and even a dragon.

If that sounds familiar, that's not surprising; both J.R.R. Tolkien and Wagner (who wrote his own libretti) drew heavily on the same mythical mother lode. For both Wagner and Tolkien, great power comes not only with great responsibility, but with certain doom as well.

The four operas of the "Ring" were intended to be performed as a single theatrical unit over four days, running a total of around 15 hours. The shortest of the four, "Das Rheingold" ("The Rhine Gold") runs around two and one half hours while the longest, "Götterdämmerung" ("The Twilight of the Gods"), clocks in at around five hours, not including intermissions.

As the old joke goes, the "Ring" took over 20 years to compose (1853 to 1876, more or less) and takes nearly as long to perform.

Delivering the essence of this in one orchestral work is no mean feat, and yet more than one arranger and/or conductor has given it a try. Lorin Maazel's "The 'Ring' Without Words" (1988) is one of my favorites (his recording of it with the Berlin Philharmonic for Teldec still sounds wonderful), but the Dutch percussionist/composer/arranger Henk de Vlieger also took a shot at it in 1991 with his "The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure," as did Friedmann Dressler in "The Symphonic Ring," which appears to date from 2011. At around 45 minutes, Mr. Märkl's appears to be the most compact of the lot, since the others run 70 minutes or more. Dressler's, for example, fills two entire CDs.

If your exposure to the "Ring" is limited to "What's Opera, Doc?" ("Kill da waaaabit!") you might want to read the detailed synopsis of Mr. Märkl's arrangement in the SLSO program. Or you can just enjoy the great Anna Russell's 20 minute version.

The essentials: Jun Märkl conducts The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Elizabeth Joy Roe, piano; Celeste Golden Boyer, violin; and Melissa Brooks, cello on Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm October 19-21. The program consists of Beethoven's Triple Concerto and orchestral selections from Wager's "Ring" operas. The concerts take place at Powell Hall in Grand Center.

Review: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus sail away from the 16/17 season with a dramatic "Flying Dutchman"

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

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David Robertson

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, like most major American orchestras, can generally be counted upon to deliver a blockbuster season finale. Last year it was Holst's popular suite The Planets paired with works by Berg and Vaughan Williams. This year (May 4th and 6th, 2017), it was another of the orchestra's forays into the world of opera: a complete concert performance of Wagner's 1843 opera Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman). And it was, as they used to say in Variety, boffo.

Written when the composer and his first wife were literally starving in Paris, The Flying Dutchman would prove to be not only Wagner's first big success but also the first opera for which he would write both the music and the libretto--a major step on the path that would eventually lead to the Ring cycle. "From here," wrote the composer in an 1851 essay, "begins my career as poet, and my farewell to the mere concoctor of opera-texts."

Soprano Marjorie Owens
Photo: Simon Pauly

In fact, almost everything in The Flying Dutchman presages the route Wagner would take in his subsequent operas. There are individual themes (leitmotifs) for the major characters, a massive orchestra with a beefed-up brass section, and a libretto that deals with the idea of salvation through the self-sacrificing love of a virtuous woman--a theme Wager found fascinating. When Senta leaps to a watery death at the end of the opera, it's hard not to see it as a precursor to Brünnhilde's more elaborate fiery demise at the conclusion of Götterdämmerung. At least Senta doesn't take all of Valhalla with her.

It also has one of the best opera overtures ever written, vividly conjuring up images of storm tossed seas and ghostly ships--even if it is hard to listen to it without thinking of a certain Warner Brothers cartoon.

Add in the Gothic elements of the ghostly ship with its undead crew, and you have the makings of a potent evening of music drama. Which is exactly what we got Thursday night, thanks to strong performances by the orchestra, chorus, and soloists. That's because Maestro David Robertson, as he did with the SLSO's Aida two years ago, has once again assembled a cast of outstanding singers who are also capable actors.

Bass-baritone Alan Held

Soprano Marjorie Owens, who was so striking in her local debut last year in Ariadne on Naxos at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, impresses once again as Senta, whose dramatic sacrifice at the opera's close saves the Dutchman from his eternally cursed around-the-world cruise. The Act II ballad in which she tells the tale of how the Dutchman is cursed to sail the world forever until redeemed by love is an ingenious conceit on Wagner's part in that it serves both as exposition and insight into Senta's obsession with someone she has only seen in a painting. Ms. Owens infused it with real longing and delivered it flawlessly, building effortlessly to a powerful vocal climax.

Bass-baritone Alan Held, who got such great reviews in the SLSO's Peter Grimes in 2013, cut an imposing figure as The Dutchman -- menacing, stentorian, and tormented. He commanded the stage with his first aria, "Die Frist ist um, und abermals verstrichen sind sieben Jahr" (The time is up, and once again seven years have elapsed) and remained a magnetic figure throughout. A seasoned Wagnerian, his big, solid voice rode easily over the composer's massive orchestra.

Bass Raymond Aceto

Bass Raymond Aceto found the comic side of Senta's venial father Deland without overdoing it and, like Mr. Held, had a voice the projected strongly throughout the houses. Tenor Rodrick Dixon showed real passion as Senta's unfairly scorned lover, Erik, and did it with a clarion-clear voice. His cavatina "Willst jenes Tags du nicht dich mehr entsinnen" (Won't you remember the day you called me to you?) in the third act was a thing of beauty.

Tenor Paul Appleby shone in the small but important comic role of the Steersman. He thoroughly captivated the audience with his big Act I aria "Mit Gewitter und Sturm aus fernem Meer" (With tempest and storm on distant seas), in which his character tries (unsuccessfully) to keep himself awake during his watch by singing a cheerful song about the sweetheart who waits for him on shore. Soprano Joy Boland rounded out this excellent cast as Senta's nurse Mary.

Teor Paul Appleby
Photo: France Marshall

Under Mr. Robertson's skilled baton, the orchestra gave a masterful account of the big, complex score, with expert playing by every section. Mr. Robertson brought out all of Wanger's drama and paced the performance in a way that kept the tension at just the right level while still allowing the quieter moments their due.

Amy Kaiser's chorus performed heroically as well. The women's chorus sang the Act II spinning song with giddy joy, while the men's chorus threw themselves into the Act III party scene, complete with foot-stomping choreography. The SLSO chorus never fails to impress.

Originally produced for the Sydney Symphony's Dutchman in 2013, S. Katy Tucker's evocative animations--projected, appropriately, on large sails suspended above the orchestra--added to the theatricality of the evening, reflecting the changing moods of the music. Her close-ups of Mr. Held's face were especially striking. I was also very taken with the way in which her lighting design changed the color of the stage and the house to emphasize the dramatic action. This was most apparent at the very end, when Senta's sacrifice dispelled the Dutchman's curse and the entire hall was bathed in blue light as Wagner's music came to a tranquil close. It was a wonderfully effective moment.

Tenor Rodrick Dixon
Photo: Dan Demetriad

Mr. Robertson made inventive use of the Powell Hall space as well, with offstage brass and, in the dramatic final scene, the choristers portraying the Dutchman's ghostly and ghastly crew singing from house left with megaphones to give their voices an eerie hollow sound. My only real issue with the evening was the forest of microphones on stage. They sometimes obscured the soloists, who sang from a raised platform behind the chorus at the very back of the stage. Still, their voices projected from there quite effectively.

The weekend's concerts opened with an emotional moment that had nothing to do with The Flying Dutchman but everything to do with the great work the orchestra has done over the years, as Mr. Robertson bade a fond public farewell to retiring percussionist John Kasica, who has been with the band since 1971. He has the distinction of having served under five different SLSO music directors (Walter Susskind, Jerzy Semkow, Leonard Slatkin, and Hans Vonk, in addition to Mr. Robertson) and, as his official bio notes, has the unique distinction of having had more solo appearances with major U.S. orchestras than any other percussionist in U.S. history. He'll be missed, but he got a great send-off.

This past weekend's excellent Flying Dutchman closed the formal SLSO concert season, but special off-season events continue through June 23.

Review: With Chicago Lyric Opera's Rheingold, the majesty is all in the music

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

The giants
Photo: Todd Rosenberg

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It's always good to see a well-sung and expertly played production of Wagner's Ring cycle, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago's mounting of Das Rheingold, which opens a four-season run through the entire thing, is certainly that. In addition, the libretto's focus on the cost of abusing power and personal trust feels very relevant in our current political environment.

A high-powered cast is led by bass-baritone Eric Owens, whose solid and voice and dramatic conviction give real gravitas to the role of Wotan, who wakes from his dream of power to learn that the giants Fasolt and Fafner have finished the construction of Valhalla. Bass-baritone Samuel Youn is also compelling as the dwarf Alberich. He's a complex character-an unscrupulous bully but also wronged by the gods and less deluded than they about the cost of the Ring's power-and Mr. Youn gives him real nuance.

The Rheinmaidens
Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Tenor Stefan Margita is a wonderfully wily Loge, making the most of the character's dry, self-aware humor. Mezzo Tanja Ariane Baumgartner gives impressive voice to Fricka's misgivings over her husband's infidelity and dubious bargains. And tenor Rodell Rosel makes a strong impression as the querulous dwarf Mime.

Soprano Laura Wilde as Freia, tenor Jesse Donner as Froh, and baritone Zachary Nelson as Donner round out the cast of gods very effectively. Soprano Diana Newman, mezzo Annie Rosen, and mezzo Lindsay Ammann perfectly captured the allure and cruelty of the Rheinmaidens. And mezzo Okka von der Damerau was appropriately ominous as Erda.

That said, I wish director David Pountney and his design team had taken the whole project a bit more seriously. They have elected to make all the mechanics visible, bunraku style, so that (for example) the Rheinmaidens in the first scene float around on massive metal platforms manipulated by visible stagehands.

Nibelheim
Photo: Todd Rosenberg

It works well there and in the Nibelheim sequence, which looks fittingly hellish; less so for the giants Fasolt and Fafner, who are nothing but huge platforms with plastic heads and inflatable arms that flop around absurdly. Fafner's murder of Fasolt ought to be chilling, as it's the first evidence of the ring's curse. Here, as the stagehands toss around inflated arms and boots, it just looks goofy. So does having Wotan tear Alberich's arm off to get the ring. Giving the audience a cheap laugh at that point makes no dramatic sense.

Other moments of imposed comedy feel equally out of place. But the concluding entry of the gods into Valhalla retains all of its musical and visual power, with the orchestra's brass ringing out as the gods literally ascend towards their gleaming (if skeletal) home. I'm willing to forgive a lot for that. Besides, the orchestra under the sure hand of Sir Andrew Davis does very well by Wagner's score throughout the evening, and that's a huge plus.

The gods enter Valhalla
Photo: Todd Roserberg

In an interview at the Lyric Opera web site, Mr. Pountney says that his staging of the Ring operas will be “united by a single theatrical device. We keep trying to go back to an empty stage to show, in the end, that this is all just a stage, just a theater. However splendid the effects are, when we roll them up and whisk them away, we go back to an empty stage." I'm not convinced that kind of Brechtian distancing serves Wagner all that well. We'll see how it works for Die Walküre next year.

Performances continue through October 22 at Lyric Opera's home in the magnificent Civic Opera House in the Chicago Loop. Information on Das Rheingold and the rest of the current season is available at their web site.

Music Review: Transcendent Wagner and electrifying Beethoven with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

Markus Stenz
Photo: Josep Molina, markusstenz.com

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Who: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Markus Stenz
What: Music of Wagner and Beethoven
When: October 9-11, 2015
Where: Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis

It's no doubt true, as René Spencer Saller observes in her program notes, that Richard Wagner was Beethoven's biggest fanboy, with an adoration of the latter's “Symphony No. 9” in D minor, Op. 125 (“Choral”) that bordered on obsession.  I'm less convinced of her statement that Wagner's last opera, "Parsifal," has "a lot in common" with Beethoven's last symphony, though. 

Performing excerpts from "Parsifal" on the same program as the Ninth, as the SLSO is doing this weekend, tends to highlight their differences more than their similarities, at least to my ears.  There's a psychological journey in both works, but musically "Parsifal" sounds more like a foundation for Bruckner than an extension of Beethoven.  Your mileage may vary.

Eric Owens
Photo: Dario Acostsa, imgartists.com

In any case, the "Parsifal" excerpts chosen for the program neatly illustrate the psychological journey of the protagonist, Amfortas, struggling to fulfill his responsibility as the guardian of the Holy Grail despite the perpetually bleeding wound he suffered when the evil magician Klingsor attacked him with the Holy Spear originally used against Christ.  Beginning with the Act I Prelude and Amfortas' agonized first act monolog "Nein! Laßt ihn unenthüllt!" (in which he begs for death to release him from his agonizing duties), we move through the remarkable Act I "transformation music" to the final pages of Act III, in which the Holy Fool Parsifal heals Amfortas and takes over his duties as guardian.

Bass-baritone Eric Owens, who was such an impressive Porgy in Lyric Opera of Chicago's "Porgy and Bess" last year, turned in another stunning committed performance as Amfortas.  His weariness and agony felt so real that I was, for a moment, fooled into suspecting that Owens himself might be in some discomfort.  But no: it was just fiercely committed acting wedded to a powerful, beautifully modulated voice.  Tenor Thomas Cooley was an equally fine Parsifal in the final scene, simply radiating unaffected compassion and singing with great clarity from the very back of the stage.

Thomas Cooley
thomascooley.com

Conductor Markus Stenz's interpretation was distinguished by passionate intensity and a fine ear for musical detail.  The transcendence in the final pages was palpable. This was also an impressively theatrical reading, with the Symphony Chorus singing from the dress circle, offstage brass, and electronically amplified chimes for the "transformation scene." 

The Beethoven Ninth that followed was equally fine.  When David Robertson conducted the SLSO's last Ninth back in 2013, I noted that he had plugged the music into a high-voltage socket, and produced a performance that crackled with electricity.  I came away feeling much the same way about Mr. Stenz's interpretation, and I wasn't alone; both the first and second movements provoked spontaneous applause Friday night, and the third might have done so as well had not Mr. Stenz opted to go straight to the titanic final movement attacca (i.e. with no real pause)—thereby increasing the dramatic effect of those opening chords.

Angela Meade with the Baltimore Symphony
Photo © Howard Korn, facebook.com

This was a Ninth that combined the bracing precision of Roger Norrington's 1987 London Classical Players recording with the profound emotional intensity of one of my favorite recorded Ninths— Wilhelm Furtwängler's legendary 1951 Bayreuth Festival live version, with its express train coda and extreme demands on the chorus.  Indeed, if Mr. Stenz had held out the chorus's "vor Gott" in the final movement much longer, some of his singers might have turned blue.  But Amy Kaiser's chorus was more than up to the challenge, turning in yet another splendid performance.

The orchestra played well, as they nearly always do, with some especially fine work in the second movement by Andrew Cuneo's bassoon section, the other woodwinds, and timpanist Shannon Wood.  The lower strings (cellos and basses) were split in half stage right and left, but still played with impressive unanimity throughout.

As was the case back in 2013, the vocal soloists for the Beethoven all had solid opera credentials; pure recitalists seem rather rare these days.  As a result, their performances were acted as well as sung, with compelling results.  Eric Owens and Thomas Cooley were joined here by mezzo-soprano Theodora Hanslowe and soprano Angela Meade—a last-minute substitution for an ailing Heidi Melton.  The quartet's final bit of polyphony in the poco adagio section just before the orchestral coda was truly a thing of beauty.

Theodora Hanslowe
Photo: Chris Carroll, barrettartists.com

Throughout the evening Mr. Stenz, who conducted without a baton, displayed the kind of highly theatrical podium style that I often associate with the late Leopold Stokowski.  His hands expressively sculpted phrases in the air and he threw his entire body into the molto vivace second movement, reminding us that it is, ultimately, a dance.  After the intense final chords of the first movement, he shook his shoulders, like a boxer who has just been through a demanding first round.  It's no wonder some conductors live to such a ripe old age; they get aerobic workouts on a regular basis.

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus repeat their exhilarating combination of Beethoven and Wagner Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., October 10 and 11, at Powell Hall in Grand Center.  The Saturday night concert will also be broadcast on St. Louis Public Radio; visit their web site for details.

Next at Powell Hall, Steven Jarvi conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with piano soloist Inon Barnatan on Friday at 10:30 a.m., Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., October 16-18.  The concert features Copland's "Piano Concerto," Gershwin's "An American in Paris," and works by Bernstein.  For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Strong performances lend power to an abridged "Götterdämmerung" at Union Avenue Opera

L-R, foreground: Neil Nelson and Clay Hilley
Photo: JohnLamb

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This weekend, Union Avenue Opera concludes its 22nd season with "Götterdämmerung" ("Twilight of the Gods"), the final installment of the most ambitious project in the company's history—Wagner's mammoth operatic cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen" ("The Ring of the Nibelung"). It's a strong production, thanks to tremendous performances by the singers and clear, focused stage direction by Karen Coe Miller.

Using editions of the operas prepared in 1990 by British composer Jonathan Dove and director Graham Vick for companies that lacked the facilities and budgets necessary to produce Wagner's massive "music dramas" in their original form, Union Avenue Opera has proved that you can retain the narrative drive and much of the dramatic power of these works while still making substantial cuts. "Götterdämmerung" has the most drastic edits of them all, eliminating several characters and cutting the overall running time in half, from over six hours to just under three.

L-R, foreground: David Dillard, Rebecca Wilson
Neil Nelson, Clay Hilley
Photo: John Lamb

That makes the plot-heavy second act, with its memory-erasing magic potions and backstabbing (both metaphorical and literal), so quick that it feels almost telegraphic. And the smaller orchestra can't quite produce the impact required for big moments like Brünnhilde's famous "immolation scene" or Siegfried's Act I Rhine journey and his Act III funeral music. But everything is sung and acted with such conviction that those are ultimately secondary considerations. Solid dramatic values go a long way towards compensating for a lack of spectacle.

Besides, as I noted back when the series began, to a certain extent the lack of theatrical flash sharpens the focus on the plot, the characters, and their implicit commentary on matters of morality and power. Wagner's libretti for the "Ring" operas starkly illustrate the cost of abusing power and personal trust—highly ironic, given the way Wagner the man did both.

Alexandra LoBianco
Photo: John Lamb

Heading the cast is the remarkable Alexandra LoBianco as Brünnhilde, the role she played in "Walküre" and "Sigfried." If there's any justice in this world she will, at some point in her career, get a chance to sing the full-length version of this role on a major stage. She has the vocal power and sheen of a first-rate dramatic soprano and the acting skill to make even the biggest moments credible.

Tenor Clay Hilley returns as Siegfried, once again matching a heroic voice with a convincing character. Bass-baritone Neil Nelson's Hagen is a captivating study in emotional conflict and avarice, delivered with a big, powerful voice that easily handles the low notes of this bass role.

Brünnhilde's sister Valkyrie Waltraute could almost be a throwaway part since she's essentially there just to deliver a lot of exposition about how Wotan is pining away in Valhalla, but alto Melissa Kornacki makes her fascinating nevertheless—beautifully sung with real depth of character.

Clay Hilley and Vassals
Photo: John Lamb

Baritone Timothy Lafontaine schemes and wheedles wonderfully as the dwarf Alberich. David Dillard and Rebecca Wilson round out the supporting cast in fine form as Gunther and his sister Gutrune, both of whom are undone by their dishonorable plotting.

Conductor Scott Schoonover has apparently beefed up Dove's reduced orchestration a bit and, some intonation issues in the brasses not withstanding, the ensemble as a whole played quite well on opening night. I missed the big emotional catharsis of the final moments, but the responsibility for that mostly lies with Mr. Dove and the small size of the orchestra pit.

Patrick Huber's unit set is the same one used for the first three operas. It's dominated by a huge screen on which images and video (designed by Michael Perkins, whose innovative work has graced many a local stage) take the place of the elaborate scenery envisioned by Wagner. They generally work well, especially in the Gibichung palace scenes in the second act, and are very effective in creating the right moods and sense of place. The screen, the catwalk above it, and the stairs to either side take up so much room that most of the action is played out in a fairly shallow area downstage. Still, Ms. Miller manages to create decent stage pictures most of the time, which is impressive.

Melissa Kornacki
Photo: John Lamb

Teresa Doggett and company have done their usual fine work with the costumes. Hagen and the pedestrian Gibichungs are done up as early 20th-century European royalty, complete with brown-shirted Vassals who look eerily like Hitler's infamous paramilitary Sturmabteilung. That immediately sets them apart from country boy Siegfried and emphasizes their division from the supernatural characters who surround them.

Union Avenue Opera has done local opera fans a real service with its four-year traversal of the Ring operas. Yes, Dove's scaled-back versions are no substitute for the real thing, but taken on their own terms they're compelling theatre. And in any case, no local opera company has a theatre equipped for the Full Richard.

If you have any interest in Wagner's "Ring" operas at all, you definitely owe it to yourself to see this "Götterdämmerung." If nothing else, it will give you bragging rights when Ms. Lobianco goes on to her inevitable stardom; you can say you saw her when. Final performances are this Friday and Saturday, August 28 and 29, at 8 PM at Union Avenue Opera, 733 Union at Enright in the Central West End. For more information, visit the company web site. Note that there is a parking lot but it tends to fill up quickly, so you'll want to get there not later than 7:30 if you can.

Symphony Preview: Extra seasons with the St. Louis Symphony, December 5-7, 2014

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As I said in my first symphony preview post this week, the main event at the St. Louis Symphony this weekend is Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” Steven Jarvi is at the podium and the violin soloists—all drawn from the symphony string section—are Jessica Cheng (“Spring”), Angie Smart (“Summer”), Jooyeon Kong (“Autumn”), and Alison Harney (“Winter”). What I left out was any mention of the other two works on the program.

Usually a performance of “The Four Season” presents all four of the concertos as a unit. But not always. Before the four concertos became part of the standard repertoire, it wasn’t unusual for them to be played individually. Indeed, as I noted in my earlier post, that’s exactly what St. Louis Symphony back in January of 1928 when guest conductor Bernadino Molinari spread them out over three separate concerts.

This time around Mr. Jarvi has kept them all on the same bill but has shuffled in two other pieces: Samuel Barber’s hauntingly nostalgic “Knoxville: Summer of 1915,” Op. 24 (1947), with Kiera Duffy as the soprano soloist; and Richard Wagner’s utterly ingratiating “Siegfried Idyll” from 1870. The Wagner was written as a Christmas present for his wife Cosima, so it’s played just before the “Winter” concerto, while the Barber acts as a bridge between spring and summer.

Mr. Jarvi elaborates on the logic behind this in the program notes. “James Agee’s incredible text,” he observes, “brings this work to life, similar to the poems that inspired The Four Seasons, which may or may not have been written by Vivaldi...With Wagner we move from autumn to winter. At first we were looking at something symbolic of winter—something representative of ‘lateness,’ the end of life. Then we thought of how Siegfried Idyll was one of the most wonderful musical Christmas gifts ever given.”

Makes sense. And I’m especially happy to see the Barber on the program. Mr. Jarvi says it’s one of his “favorite pieces of all time” and I’m inclined to agree with him. I first encountered this wonderfully evocative setting of James Agee’s little prose-poem (which later became the prologue for his autobiographical novel “A Death in the Family”) in a 1968 recording by the great Leontyne Price with an orchestra conducted by Thomas Schippers, and have been something of a sucker for it ever since.

The text is a poetic recollection of a peaceful scene from the author’s childhood in which the narrator is sometimes an adult and sometimes the child who later becomes the adult. Prosaic descriptions of a quiet summer evening on the lawn are mixed with flights of poetic fancy, leading finally to philosophical contemplation of the narrator’s family and their place in the cosmos: "By chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night." Barber’s music mirrors and highlights all of this with deceptive simplicity.

The inspiration for the novel of which Agee’s text became a part was a death; specifically, the death of Agee’s father. In the case of Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” the inspiration was exactly the opposite: the birth, in 1869, of the composer’s son Siegfried.

The piece was originally titled “Triebschen Idyll with Fidi's birdsong and the orange sunrise, as symphonic birthday greeting. Presented to his Cosima by her Richard. "Fidi," says Wikipedia, “was the family's nickname for their son Siegfried. It is thought that the birdsong and the sunrise refer to incidents of personal significance to the couple.” The first performance took place not in a concert hall, but on the stairs of the Wagner family home in Tribschen on Christmas morning, 1870. The musicians were members of the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. Wagner’s wife Cosima (whose own birthday was December 24th) was awakened by the first gentle strains of the music and was, as you might expect, completely enchanted.

“As I awoke,” she would later recall, “my ear caught a sound, which swelled fuller and fuller; no longer could I imagine myself to be dreaming: music was sounding, and such music! When it died away, Richard came into my room with the children and offered me the score of the symphonic birthday poem. I was in tears, but so were all the rest of the household. Richard had arranged his orchestra on the staircase, and thus was our Tribschen consecrated forever.”

Although Wagner never intended the piece for public performance,, financial considerations obliged him to expand the orchestration from the original 13 players to 35 and publish the work as the “Siegfried Idyll” in 1878. It might also have been a canny marketing decision. He used themes from the “Idyll” in his 1876 opera “Siegfried,” so publication gave him another way to get his “Ring” cycle music before the public.

It is, in any case, a disarming a piece as you are likely to hear, and utterly unlike the more grandiose gestures most people associate with Wagner. It’s a reminder that even that great egotist had his moments of intimate reflection. And it also reminds us that winter is about the warmth of family as well as the cold weather.

The essentials: 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 concerts take place at Powell Symphony Hall, 718 North Grand in Grand Center. For more information: stlsymphony.org.

Opera Preview: "Siegfried" at Union Avenue Opera

Marc Schapman as Mime
David Dillard as Wanderer
(C) John Lamb 2014

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Union Avenue Opera is nothing if not fearless, often taking on works that strain the company's space at the Union Avenue Christian Church to the limit. This weekend and next, the company follows its highly praised productions of Verdi's "La Traviata" and Andre Previn's "A Streetcar Named Desire" with the final production of its 20th anniversary season, "Siegfried." It's the third installment of its most ambitious project yet—Wagner's mammoth four-opera cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (“The Ring of the Nibelung”).

The story of the "Ring" is an epic fantasy involving clashes among gods and heroes over a magic ring that gives the wearer nearly unlimited magical power but also carries with it a terrible curse. There are dwarves, giants and (yes) even a dragon—but no hobbits or elves.

As did Tolkien for his "ring" cycle, Wagner (who wrote the libretti as well as the music) used stories from Norse and Scandinavian mythology to forge a tale of the passing of the old gods and magic and the rise of humanity. For both Wagner and Tolkien, great power comes not only with great responsibility, but with certain doom as well.

To get a feel for just how ambitions a "Ring" cycle is, consider the sheer scope of the project. The four epic operas of the "Ring" were intended to be performed as a single theatrical unit over four days, running a total of around 15 hours. The shortest of the four, "Das Rheingold" ("The Rhine Gold") runs around two and one half hours while the longest, "Götterdämmerung" ("The Twilight of the Gods") clocks in at around five hours, not including intermissions. For both performers and audience members, it's a major commitment.

Clay Hilley as Siegfried
Marc Schapman as Mime
(C) John Lamb 2014

The version of the "Ring" Union Avenue is presenting is not, I should point out, Wagner's original. That would be far beyond the technical capabilities not only of Union Avenue but, indeed, of every other opera company in town. The nearest city with a large and well-equipped enough opera house to mount a full production is the Lyric Opera in Chicago, and they won't be doing one until 2016. Even Wagner had to have his own theatre built for the purpose—the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, where the "Ring" and other Wagnerian operas are performed every summer at the Bayreuth Festival.

Instead of the originals, Union Avenue is using reduced versions of the operas created in 1990 by British composer Jonathan Dove and director Graham Vick for use by smaller companies without the resources to mount full-scale productions. They're noticeably shorter, but that's not the sacrilege you might think. Wagner the librettist does not always serve Wagner the composer well, and there's much in the texts or the originals that is redundant and discursive.

This reduced "Ring" is still a big deal for a small company, though, and Union Avenue deserves a lot of credit for taking it on.

Union Avenue's "Ring" got off to a somewhat rocky start in August of 2012 with a production of “Das Rheingold" marred by some technical glitches and sluggish tempi. Things improved noticeably in last year's "Die Walküre", which packed a considerable dramatic punch. Will "Siegfried" continue that trend? The only way to find out is to see it. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., August 22-30, at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union at Enright in the Central West End. For more information: unionavenueopera.org. Note that there is a parking lot but it tends to fill up quickly, so you'll want to get there not later than 7:30 if you can.