Jeremy Denk, piano

Sometimes there’s just too darned much talking at classical concerts. Whether it’s welcoming the crowd, thanking the donors and pleading for more contributions, or explicating what’s about to happen in the music, all that verbiage gets tiresome.

Yet along comes a musician like Jeremy Denk who’s almost as good with words as he is at playing the piano.  Denk made his third appearance at the Union College Concert Series on Friday night and offered rather extensive remarks throughout the night.  Though he’s widely known for his blog, I don’t recall him chatting at all in previous appearances.

Actually I’d had my fill long before he was done, despite his natural sense of humor, occasional references to pop culture, and illuminating use of musical examples that were both played and sung.  But there was a terrific moment in the concert that wouldn’t have happened if he’d not prepared the audience.  They responded to a piece with laughter. How rare is that?

It came at the end of Ligeti’s Etude No. 1, the first of a knotty set of works by the Hungarian composer who died in 2006.  Denk briefly described the structure or inspiration of each of the pieces and also made clear how tough they were to play. By no means was that opening etude a joke piece.  It was craggy and hard edged and kind of explodes at the end.  And somehow Denk gave the audience both the knowledge and the permission to enjoy it.

The evening’s program was based on the idea of variations.  It opened with two Bach toccatas and continued with Beethoven’s “Eroica” Variations, Op. 35. The succession of short form pieces felt kind of choppy and made one restless during the more open ended finale, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111.

But the hushed Arietta and Cantabile passages of the sonata, which linger in the treble, reached a sublime state.  Those were just some of the many times when Denk’s range of touch was amazing.  The Bach had clear voicing without being brittle.  When he switched to Beethoven, it was like he had a different instrument or had added on some new bass notes.  The sound became robust and mighty.  The Ligeti pushed technical and sonic matters into a whole other realm — one where Denk was fully in command and had the audience happily following along.

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Jeremy Denk makes Carnegie Hall debut on short notice

Jeremy Denk: Out in the Times

Concert review: Denk plays Ives and Bach

Concert review: Denk plays Ives and Beethoven

Two big gulps: Denk plays Ives and Beethoven

Sunday afternoon’s program featured something far better than a risky premiere.  Instead, it was Jennifer Higdon’s Violin Concerto, which was written in 2009 and received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music.  That award doesn’t always mean enduring quality but Higdon’s concerto has got the stuff.

One of today’s most widely performed composers, Higdon writes in the current style that might be dubbed post-ugly.  The concerto, like most of her music, is lively, fluent and engaging, but also extraordinarily demanding on the players, both soloist and orchestra alike.

It was written for and recorded by star virtuoso Hilary Hahn, a former student of Higdon’s at the Curtis Institute.  Sunday’s soloist was another Curtis student, 21-year old Benjamin Beilman.  He’s the first performer to take up the work after Hahn and this was his debut in the piece. He delivered with distinction and flair.

The first movement’s cadenza is a genuine tour de force, with a pilling up of themes and showy devices.  Higdon, who spoke before the piece, said she wondered if it was actually playable but Beilman tackled it with ease and confidence

After a stretch of romantic relaxation in the central movement, based on the form of the chaconne, comes the finale, which Higdon likened to a violin in a race at the Olympics.  The hurdles on the track were the colorful explosions from the orchestra.  The Glens Falls players shined in the numerous brief solos.

Beilman’s encore, from Prokofiev’s Sonata, revealed one of his gifts that was largely missing from the hyperactive concerto, a warm radiant tone.

After intermission, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” sounded like a different orchestra had taken the stage. The woodwinds were sour and out of tune at the launch of the first movement and the babbling brook of the second had a meager flow rate.  But Peltz added momentum with each movement and the playing got better for it.

Despite the struggles, or perhaps because of them, it was an engaging performance over all.  In other words, there was always something to listen for, good or bad, rather than just sitting through another accurate but rote account of the familiar classic.

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

IN OTHER HIGDON NEWS:

The long awaited opera (Higdon’s first) for the San Francisco Symphony will no longer be in San Francisco.  The Sante Fe Opera has stepped up to take on the commission.  After a long search for the right subject, and then a protracted negotiation for rights, the source material is in place:  ”Cold Mountain,” the best-selling novel by Charles Frazier.  The Opera Company of Philadelphia is a partner in the commission and production and the premiere is slated for 2015.

Here are more details from the Sante Fe Opera’s press release:

COLD MOUNTAIN – Jennifer Higdon, composer; Gene Scheer, librettist

2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War.  Cold Mountain is Charles Frazier’s powerful account of one soldier, W. P. Inman, who deserts the Confederate army as the war is coming to an end and makes his way back to his home on Cold Mountain.  The novel won the 1997 National Book Award and was made into a film in 2003. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

The Civil War has a special resonance for New Mexicans.  The New Mexico Territory was the site of one of the final and westernmost battles of the Civil War, fought at nearby Glorieta Pass in 1862.  Historians have called it a major event in the history of the Civil War.  The village of Pecos is the site of an annual reenactment of the skirmish.

Cold Mountain composer Jennifer Higdon is one of the most in-demand composers today.   She was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto and a Grammy the same year for her Percussion Concerto. blue cathedral, written in 2000, on the death of her brother, has become one of the most performed modern orchestral  works.  Her compositions have been performed by leading orchestras throughout the country and she has received commissions from numerous instrumental ensembles.

The versatile American librettist and composer Gene Scheer is the librettist.  Among his many projects are several with composer Jake Heggie, the latest being Moby Dick for the Dallas Opera which was premiered in 2010.  He collaborated with Tobias Picker on two operas, An American Tragedy, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, andTherese Raquin for the Dallas Opera.  He has written songs for singers including Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair and Stephanie Blythe, and a song cycle, Voices from World War II for Nathan Gunn.

Nathan Gunn, who will sing the role of W.P. Inman, is one of the country’s leading operatic baritones.  He has performed in virtually every major opera house in the world and is admired as an interpreter of new works including operas by Tobias Picker, Daron Hagen, Andre Previn and Peter Eötvös.  He collaborated with Gene Scheer on the opera An American Tragedy, and the song cycle Voices from World War II.  Gunn is also a distinguished concert performer and recitalist.  He appeared in the 1998 production of Berlioz’ Beatrice and Benedict and the following year in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos in Santa Fe.  He is currently Professor of Voice at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

This year’s entry is “Die Liebe der Danae.” Richard Strauss’ second to last opera, it was completed in 1940 but only premiered in 1952, three years after the composer’s death.  The piece’s New York staged debut opened on Friday night and was seen on Sunday afternoon at the Fisher Center.

Besides declaring its greatness, the notes from conductor Botstein and stage director Kevin Newbury point to the opera’s appropriateness for our times.  It’s about the worship and necessity of money, the primacy of status, and the fickleness of love.  Yet the fact that the source material is Greek myth says we’re hardly the first generation to be obsessed with such matters.

In past years, Bard’s productions have been so lavish with stagecraft as to balance out the middling quality of the work at hand. But “Danae” received a modest, if occasionally clever treatment, at least by past standards.  A spray of long tinsel is lowered to form a golden (moneyed) halo, but like an ATM card it gets used a few too many times.  After intermission, Danae and Midas are living out of a beat-up blue compact car.  Otherwise, the sets are rather static projections of Manhattan buildings or a desert horizon.

The most arresting scene visually and musically was the opening.  As the orchestra plays a tight rhythmic counterpoint reminiscent of Kurt Weill, a couple dozen Wall Streets in navy suits and power ties are scurrying about, singing of unpaid bills.  Later they opened their briefcases to the heavens, like open mouthed fledglings waiting to be fed.

The second scene is an attractive pairing of sopranos Megan Miller as Danae and Sarah Jane McMahon as Xanthe that brought to mind “Der Rosenkavalier.”  Miller’s best moments come late in the opera when the textures thin and the pace relaxes.

Almost all of the vocal writing is darned tough, with long, not terribly gracious lines set high in the register. Combine this with the constantly unfolding themes and cadences in the orchestra and the effect is unrelenting.  Given their tasks, Miller and the other leads, tenor Roger Honeywell as Midas and bass Carsten Wittmoser as Jupiter, did more than admirable work.  But the playing of the American Symphony Orchestra under Botstein was more workmanlike than usual.

R. Strauss’ “Die Liebe der Danae”
3 p.m. Sunday, July 31, 2011
Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson

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It’s hard to imagine that the Bard Music Festival will ever get around to a season titled “Noel Coward and His World.”  So it’s probably enough that the college’s SummerScape series has mounted such a loving revival of the composer’s operetta “Bitter Sweet.”   The show opened on Thursday night, was seen at the Friday matinee and runs through August 14 in the intimate smaller theater of the Fisher Center.

While his name evokes the early to mid-20th century, the dandy Coward lived until 1973 and was once a powerhouse composer, writer, performer and producer.  These days, in the realm of classical music and opera at least, his work is a rarity.  So again, “Bitter Sweet” was a welcome arrival.

But just to be clear, this is no forgotten masterpiece either. It’s probably debatable whether the category of operetta or musical comedy is a better fit.  The numbers, often overflowing with clever inner rhymes, aren’t quiet as droll as most Gilbert and Sullivan nor as studied as some of Stephen Sondheim.

Though the music never exactly soars, there are plenty of good tunes including a one-time hit, “I’ll See You Again.”  The small orchestra, conducted by James Bagwell, is sweetened up with lots of saxophones.

The story is a touching reflection on youthful love seen through the eyes of a matron, played with wistful grace by Sian Phillips.  She’s surrounded by a cast that’s surprisingly large and pleasingly youthful and energetic.

Two of the leads certainly had an operatic confidence and power.  Mezzo Sarah Miller’s performance as Sarah/Sari only grew richer as the show progressed.  Tenor William Ferguson twice started songs without accompaniment yet was in fine tune when the orchestra joined in many bars later.

As a German chanteuse, soprano Amanda Quittieri had several fine production numbers though her finale was a garbled mix of languages.  The best showmanship came from the male quartet of droll waiters. They climaxed in the suggestive and frolicsome “Green Carnation,” Coward’s only slightly veiled reference to Oscar Wilde.

The plot jumps about between decades and across national borders.  Adrian W. Jones’ single set was elegant and efficient but it was the lavish costumes by Gregory Gale that best evoked each time and place.  A constant presence on stage was the grand piano and more than a few performers displayed fluent keyboard skills.

Noel Coward’s “Bitter Sweet”
3 p.m. Friday, August 5, 2011
Fisher Center, Bard College, Annadale-on-Hudson, NY

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Photos by Cory Weaver courtesy Bard College

Throwing in one afternoon recital was going to be a nice added touch.  But renditions of some standards and maybe a few arias would have sufficed, right?  If she wanted to touch on her youthful fondness for Karen Carpenter, too, well then all the better.

As it turns out, Friday’s hour-long program was a daring revelation of Voigt’s deepest self. Sure, she sang plenty — complete or truncated renditions of 18 different selections, with pianist Kevin Stites. But it was what she said that touched the audience in deep and unexpected ways.

Working loosely from a script prepared by playwright Terrence McNally, Voigt traced her life story.  Born to a Baptist family in Illinois, her earliest musical experiences were in church choirs.  During her early teens, the family relocated to California. She joked that the sound of the town’s name — Placentia — still leaves a rather unclean taste in her mouth.  While there, she took to musical theater and we heard snatches of selections from “Fiddler on the Roof” and “The Music Man.”

Tracing her ascent into the highest rank of opera singers soon led Voigt to utter the f-word:  F-A-T.  She once tipped the scales at 333 pounds.  She reminded us of the international incident caused when she lost a role at Covent Garden because she couldn’t fit in a little black dress (size one). Though she mostly steered clear of settling scores, Voigt did declare, “concepts are the first refuse for directors who don’t trust the music.”  After recounting a failed marriage, the over eating and gastric bypass surgery, it didn’t come as a surprise to hear Voigt also reveal her alcoholism.

And oh, how she sang.  While her mighty voice seems rather contained in the role of Annie, songs like “Edelweiss,” “Moon River” and “Show Me” felt not just comfortable but open hearted.  Classics were also on the bill with leider of Brahms and Strauss as well as “Nessun Dorma,” the first aria she ever wanted to sing — before she learned it was the exclusive terrain of tenors.  Knocking down barriers seems to be Voigt’s greatest role these days.

“Voigt Lessons”
with soprano Deborah Voigt
Friday, July 29, 2011
Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown NY

Previously on MyBigGayEars:  Deborah Voigt Gets Her Gun On

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The storm had already hit and the argument was in full progress when the lights go up on “A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck,” the new opera by composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tony Kushner.  The one-act premiered in a double bill on July 21 at the Glimmerglass Festival and was seen on Friday evening.

It’s a recreation of a tumultuous moment late in the life of Eugene O’Neill, and the playwright is at loggerheads with his third wife Carlotta.  The music is pounding and furious while the insults, pointed and smart, zing. The pace eventually slackens, thank heavens, but the entire 40-minute opera has a power and immediacy that’s rare to new works.

Tesori conducted the Glimmerglass Orchestra, which often evoked the era of the jazz big band.  Bits of popular song come over the P.A. system, as if from the onstage phonograph.  Kushner’s fascinating libretto makes frequent use of biographical lines from O’Neill’s own works.

Bass-baritone David Pittsinger, as O’Neill, sang with a sturdy force while moving with an old man’s gate.  Soprano Patricia Schuman released plenty of fury but her part seemed to be in low register and she was often covered by the loud orchestra.  Some drama critics of the day show up as a trio, to both torment and croon.

The evening opened with “Later The Same Evening,” by composer John Musto and librettist Mark Campbell, in its professional company debut.   A comparatively lackluster 75 minutes, the opera dips into the imagined inner musings and chance interactions of 11 characters from five paintings of Edward Hopper.

Musto’s music is clean-lined and his settings of English combined with the singer’s fine diction revealed every word. The orchestration was lean to the point of being dry.  Taken together, it did evoke the pensive, depressive nature of Hopper’s human still lifes.

In an economical if obvious bit of staging, reproductions of the paintings are seen on the back wall, as if hung in a gallery.  The body positions and costumes of the singers mimic their painted counterparts.  Leon Major was the director.

Erhard Rom’s silver-walled set gets filled with dry ice after intermission for “Blizzard.”  Company director Francesca Zambello staged that with typically unfussy and economic ease.

All told, the new Zambello era at Glimmerglass has had about as many successes as failures.  But the company is reaching higher and once again making Cooperstown a destination for inquisitive arts goers of all stripes.

“Later The Same Evening” (Musto/Campbell)
“A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck” (Tesori/Kushner)
Friday, July 29, 2011
Glimmerglass Festival, Cooperstown NY

Previously on MyBigGayEars:
Tony Kushner’s first opera explores Eugene O’Neill

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

All production photos by Julieta Cervantes courtesy Glimmerglass.

When it filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, the venerable institution became a sad symbol for the fragile state of the economy and the arts in general. Only the near demise of the New York City Opera — once an annual visitor to Saratoga — has been bigger news.

Meanwhile the orchestra keeps playing and awaits its young music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin, whose tenure is still more than a year from starting. It’s a period of transition for the annual summer residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center as well, after last year’s retirement of music director Charles Dutoit. It’s only logical to conclude that every guest conductor this season might also be auditioning.

Marin Alsop was a fine choice to lead Wednesday’s opening night (7/27/11). There’s her family history with the Spa City, but more importantly she has an obvious rapport with the players.

She launched the evening with a vivid account of Beethoven’s “Leonore” Overture No. 3. There were even more dramatic highs and lows in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 “Pathetique,” which ended the night.

Alsop, who conducted from memory, didn’t take long in bringing out the symphony’s bleeding heart. During the opening Adagio the strings surged as the winds pulsed. After the waltz in the second movement got going, she occasionally dropped the beat and just gave small jabs of accents to the cellos and basses or the brass. Throughout it all, Alsop seemed in firm command and yet allowed enough room for the players to achieve a state of raucous exultation.

A tight and lively reading of Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26 featured Sarah Chang as soloist. She displayed a characteristically impressive technique combined with a slightly austere tone. Though not exactly a warm presence on stage, Chang can be fun to watch, especially when she tilts so far backward while playing a long line. After ending some phrases in the final movement, she swung her bow down in a long arc, something like the pendulum of a clock.

The evening ended with an unexpected encore, one of Brahms’ Hungarian dances. Brief and fast, it was filled with light percussion in the Turkish style.

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Marin Alsop: From the lawn to the podium

In the new production of “Carmen,” which opened at the Glimmerglass Festival on Saturday, the action grows more tight and focused throughout the night until Carmen and Don Jose are alone in a ring.  In a daring moment of surrender, Carmen stops her tormenting ways and prostrates herself before her angry and jilted lover.  She seems to think better of it, but it’s too late. The knife plunges.

The lights are at their brightest in that climax.  The evening began in a washed out haze with only fleeting bits of color against a jumbled set of sepia and gray tones. In a program note, director Ann Bogart says that she took inspiration from bull fighting and the grittiness of the Orson Welles film “Touch of Evil.”  She makes the evening a long but inexorable progression.

The performances also have a cinematic intimacy, especially that of twenty-four year old Ginger Costa-Jackson who’s making her debut as Carmen. In fact, it’s her first time to have the lead role in an opera.  Her voice was dark, rich and attractive. Bringing to mind a tousle-haired Jennifer Lopez, she displays a youthful and unceasing passion and an understated skill of seduction. Costa-Jackson seldom played overtly to the house, but stayed tightly bound in the role, intently focused on Carmen’s shifting priorities and ploys.

The show horse of the night was tenor Adam Diegel as Don Jose.  His voice grew more powerful and compelling with each scene.  As for his acting, Carmen seemed to truly piss him off. More than once he flung her away from him, as if trying to fight a magnetic bond.

The secondary leads were fine to serviceable.  Anya Matanovic sang beautifully as Micaela. Keith Miller hit his marks in the famous toreador number but later had a frog in his throat.

A pair of Spanish dancers enlivens several scenes, especially with a terrific shadow dance in the second act.  Just after the opening, there’s a creepy mix of soldiers and children marching in formation.

As expected, Bogart’s production mostly avoids the obvious and traditional. Carmen never handles a rose. Instead, a basket of oranges sit stage center for much of act one. They’re tossed about in a vaguely erotic way.

The set is often jumbled and junky, in that familiar, supposedly non-traditional manner.  How many seasons now have we seen the theatre’s back wall?  But it takes more than clutter and shadows to rob the drama from “Carmen.”

MEDEA
Glimmerglass Festival
Opening night, July 8, 2011

The dramatic soul that enlivens Glimmerglass’ new production of Cherubini’s “Medea” doesn’t appear on stage but comes from the pit.  Starting with the lengthy overture, it’s an evening for the orchestra thanks to the 28 year-old Italian conductor Daniel Rustioni.

With his vigorous style and unceasing energy, Rustioni displays a strong vision of the score and musters an unusually hearty and sustained sound from the Glimmerglass orchestra.  One still wishes that the string section was 20 or 30 percent larger, but the thought didn’t come to mind during Friday’s opening night.

Though a central component to any successful opera staging, a conductor can’t overcome limitations and failings on the stage and there are many with this “Medea.”

Soprano Alexandra Deshorties got all the notes in the hugely demanding title role but failed to deliver the kind of coherent and unflinching grit that the character requires to be convincing let alone compelling.  She was not aided by some bizarre choices from director Michael Barker-Cavan.

This is not, however, an opera transplanted to some strange new time and place.  The single set is vaguely Greek, distinctly temple.  A ceremonial scene makes elegant use of incense and water.  Medea’s appropriately chilly first entrance is one of her best moments.  In the second act, her body is contorted into one awkward yoga position after another.  Toward the end, as she sings on and on about her children, she hardly looks at them or touches them.

During one of many climactic arguments with Jason, the two are shoved off to the side of the stage and grip opposite sides of a black wall.  The old fashioned stand and sing method would have been better.

Joe Vanek designed the set as well as the costumes and they’re a hodgepodge of styles. Medea gets caught up in a pea green dress with a stiff and distracting train. At one point the male chorus looks like some Ken and G. I. Joe dolls decided share play clothes.

Deshorties gets upstaged by singers more comfortable — and showy — in their roles.  Wendy Bryn Harmer is a knock out as Glauce, Jason Collins unflagging but not particularly moving as Jason. David Pittsinger is sturdy as a rock in the priestly role of King Creon.  As the wretched plot winds on, some of the most moving moments come from the servant Neris, played with affecting beauty by Sarah Larsen, a member of the company’s Young Artist program.

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Photos by Julieta Cervantes courtesy Glimmerglass Festival.

GAY EARS ADDENDUM:

During the intermission of Medea I spoke to a colleague about the handsome and dynamic conductor Daniel Rustioni.  I said that he’s got that Joshua Bell-type hair with a great bounce.  The person I was conversing with had been at the company’s opening night dinner the prior week and said that when he saw the guy across the way  at the party he asked, “Who’s boy toy is that?”  He got the reply, “He’s one of this year’s conductors!”

Rustioni is starting to get an internet buzz and recently appeared in Italian Vanity Fair.