Philadelphia Orchestra
Saratoga Performing Arts Center
August 4-21, 2010
After the Philadelphia Orchestra abruptly parted ways in 2008 with its seventh music director, Christopher Eschenbach, it turned to Charles Dutoit to fill in as chief conductor. It’s a mighty long interim status for Dutoit, who will depart in 2012 with the arrival of Yannick Nezet-Seguin.
The connection that made the Dutoit-Philly alliance a natural was his long status as artistic director and principal conductor of the orchestra’s annual August residency at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York.
Dutoit ended his 21-year tenure in that post this August. The Spa City also bid farewell to violinist Chantal Juillet, who has been artistic director of the concurrent Saratoga Chamber Music Festival for 20 years. (Earlier this year Dutoit and Juillet were married.) The orchestra season runs for three weeks and Dutoit usually conducts three out of four nights every week (the other time is devoted to pops programs). The chamber music events, which draw on members of the orchestra and guest soloists, are tucked into the Sunday through Tuesday slots.
Because Dutoit and Juillet hightailed it out of town about half-way through the full season, the celebrations of their tenure were particularly intense and concentrated. So too were the musical performances. After they were gone, the orchestra was turned over to a series of guest conductors. Next season will see more of the same, since the SPAC management has no plans to name a replacement for Dutoit for at least a year.
But Saratoga hasn’t seen the last of Dutoit. During the farewell speeches at Dutoit’s last concert, SPAC president Marcia White offered him the title of conductor emeritus if he promised to return next summer for a performance. In his own remarks, Dutoit eventually got around to saying, “See you next year.”
As for the music, it was blockbusters all the way. Such has it always been. Opening night August 4 featured Yo-Yo Ma in a typically sublime performance of the Elgar Concerto followed by a blistering account of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” Sometimes, in one run-through after another of standard rep, Dutoit can veer from being remarkably efficient to a tad mechanical. Likewise, it feels like the Philly musicians could deliver certain pieces in their sleep. But this “Rite” had them all working plenty hard, despite the fact they’d played the piece together several times on an Asian tour earlier in the season.
Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” on August 6 featured a return by actor Alec Baldwin, who narrated Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” last season. (He’s quickly becoming a regular presence in classical music, by the way, serving as the radio host for the New York Philharmonic.) The concert featured more muscular Stravinsky, with the Suite from “The Firebird.” Another guest for the night was pianist Kirill Gerstein, who gave an attractive and lyric performance of the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2.
Big crowds in the amphitheatre and lawn, totaling about 4,000, turned out for these nights as well as for an all-Gershwin evening on August 11 with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who’s an annual presence in Saratoga and, apparently, close pals with Dutoit and Juillet. He began the Piano Concerto in F with austere tone, but it was just a tease that made the blues inflections and flashy runs all the more appealing. The opening work, “An American in Paris” felt remarkably fresh and, even more surprisingly, like a real workout for the orchestra. It was Dutoit’s penultimate night and the players were clearly delivering.
Would Shostakovich’s Festive Overture have been quiet so loud and crisp were it not Dutoit’s farewell concert? Probably not. The August 12 concert proceeded with Korngold’s Violin Concerto with Juillet as soloist. She’s an ambidextrous and modest presence at the chamber music events, some times playing first or second violin or even picking up the viola. Whatever role Juillet takes on, her chamber music work has been nimble and appealing. But this was my second time to hear her in a full concerto and the sound was, again, weak and unsure. Dutoit ended the night with commanding reading of Respighi’s “Pines of Rome.” During his final curtain calls, he waved and mouthed “bye-bye” to the cheering crowds.
Two nights prior, Juillet’s farewell concert with the Chamber Music Festival became an extended musicale in the sold-out 500-seat Spa Little Theatre, a stone’s throw from the amphitheatre. Schumann’s Quintet for Piano and Strings surged with life but was overwhelmed in scale by Dohnanyi’s Sextet for piano, strings, clarinet and horn, a fascinating essay that reached orchestral scale. Gerstein and Thibaudet alternated piano duties, played a charming duet by Faure, and kept the proceedings going for a while with a series of miniatures in tribute to Juillet. For the finale, a duet from Ravel’s “Mother Goose,” Dutoit turned pages while gently resting a hand on Gerstein’s shoulder. Such unedited intimacy gave the feel of a family concert, albeit with some very high caliber relatives.
Things changed dramatically during the final week of orchestra concerts with guest conductors Peter Oundjian and Lawrence Foster. One was reminded of Dutoit’s abilities to work some magic on just a morning of rehearsal time. There were no major errors in either night, but the Brahms Second Symphony under Oundjian lurched more than a bit. And the Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 only came to life when Sarah Chang tore into the cadenza after the third movement.
Lawrence Foster, who debuted with the Philly in 1977, had a better time of it. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with the remarkably relaxed soloist Garrick Ohlsson, was both soupy and choppy in the opening but ensemble matters soon settled in. And the Dvorak Symphony No. 8 ended with night with fine color and charm.
The parade of fresh faces on the podium will continue through next season at least. Sometimes there may be struggles between orchestra and conductor, whatever the repertoire. But after 21 years of Dutoit serving up dependably good, sometime rote performances of rather unimaginative programs, that doesn’t feel like such a bad thing at all.
