The highlight of act one is the whimsical witty tune “When I was a Lad” wherein Sir Joseph Porter recalls how he became First Lord of the Admiralty. James Harms is the perfect comic as Porter with his unique blend of lovable slapstick and nice voice to land this difficult song with its long rhyming phrases. He thrills the audience with his wonderful presentation as the entire ensemble repeats his rhymes and gestures
David Fray
I was highly disappointed that at seemingly the last minute, pianist David Fray chose to substitute for Mozart’s glorious Piano Concerto No. 25 in C the relatively overplayed Concerto No. 20 in D minor. While, like all of Mozart’s late piano concertos, this work is on a very high plane, it arguably lacks some of the scintillating magic of the others; at times it even begins to sound like Mozart is writing in rote-tragic mode. In fairness to Mozart, this evening’s performance did the work few favors. After an expressively wooden orchestral introduction,
In the end, however, it seemed that Mena had just set the metronome at certain level, and was determined not to waver from it. The CSO’s sound certainly benefited from the size of its string section, a marked break from modern convention; but doubling of the winds, in addition would have maintained a better balance. Still, Mena can certainly be very musical at times, and I would not hesitate to say that this concert would have been very much worth-while had I only remembered to arrive after the intermission.
Austrian conductor Andreas Mitisek’s boldly conceived staging of Astor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer’s tango operita, Maria de Buenos Aires—now playing at the Harris Theater—lands like a phantom fist to the gut. Set to the sultry fluidity of the tango nuevo, this free-form adaptation of the original is a fierce piece of social realism which at once aspires to the dimensions of an expressionist myth.
In some ways, I think, it was an overly ambitious program that might have benefited in terms of consistency by being shorter and/or more focused. The rarely-played but engaging late Beethoven overture that opened the program, The Consecration of the House, gave some suggestions of being under-rehearsed:
One cannot help but be tickled pink by this at first, though it is questionable whether it has the lasting power of a 2 and a half hour opera. No orchestra here, just a string quartet, and pianist playing the orchestral reduction; but this actually substitutes rather well. And the company clearly has the voices to put on a greatly scaled down version of the opera. The staging, costuming, and choreography, I’m afraid to say, is another matter.
Muti was more convincing in the Beethoven Fourth Symphony that ended the program. The performance of the Fourth, Beethoven at his most playful, was filled with the same delightfully singing lines and imaginative phrasing heard in the previous pieces – to Muti’s credit, this was clearly a meticulously rehearsed performance – yet there was more real vigor than in the Mozart, even if it was somewhat restrained
The Mass in B minor is in a sense Bach’s last will and testament, the product of his very last compositional energies before his death in 1750. Its two hour and 45 minute length is certainly imposing; but though not without majesty this work does not have the sublime, cataclysmic qualities of the last monumental works of such later composers as Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven. In its most beautiful moments the Mass in B minor has a sort of divine serenity and languor, as of one who had taken stock of his life’s work, and, in sum, was prepared to leave this world rather contented.
The libretto doesn’t shy away from the sexual power of the original script as it contains references to Blanche’s gay husband and as it presents the provocative kissing the newspaper collector “on the mouth”scene. This free-flowing three hour plus production has the haunting tone and a fluid use of trumpet and solo clarinet to amplify the atmosphere and psychology of a scene. Previn demonstrates his perception of the cloudy views of reality as seen by Williams’ characters. A Streetcar Named Desire pack a wallop and must take its place as one fine contemporary operas. Renee Fleming makes Blanche her own.
La boheme is not the greatest opera ever composed, but it is perhaps the quintessentially atmospheric operatic experience; it justifies its reputation not by overwhelming the audience with dramatic power but by sweeping us up into the many small currents of life and emotion that run through it and depositing us at its heartrending yet intimate conclusion. Such a work needs a really sensitive performance to make its full effect, and that is just what can be heard at Lyric this month (aided by Michael Yeargan’s warmly evocative set).