Concert Review: The Road to Utopia

Lorin Maazel returns to the New York Philharmonic.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Once more, with feeling. Lorin Maazel conducts the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2009 The New York Philharmonic.

Lorin Maazel has been entertaining music lovers for 75 years. Think about that for a minute. The American, Paris-born conductor, composer and former Music Director of the New York Philharmonic  will turn 83 on March 6. He started violin lessons at age 5. Conducting lessons began two years later. He appeared before an audience, baton in hand, when he was just 8 years old.

All that experience was brought to bear Thursday night in a concert that saw Mr. Maazel offer his last program with his former orchestra...at least for a little while. (He is not on the schedule for 2013-2014.)

The concert opened with one of Mr. Maazel's trademarks, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy that was also the first success of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. In this performance, conductor and orchestra showed that there is more here than just the famous "love theme"--it is an effective retelling of the play that boils Shakespeare's tragedy down to a lean 20 minutes.

Concert Review: The Art of the Feud

Charles Dutoit conducts Berlioz' Roméo et Juliette Symphony.

Charles Dutoit conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Photo by Michael J. Lutch © 2010 Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The deep connection between the music of Hector Berlioz and the Boston Symphony Orchestra goes back to the music directorship of Charles Munch. His administration (1949-1962) coincided with the birth of the LP and the rise of stereo, and the French conductor recorded much of the Berlioz repertory with the BSO for RCA. Charles Dutoit, who began his conducting career at Tanglewood under the tutelage of Mr. Munch, later recorded a Berlioz cycle of his own (for Decca) with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Dutoit brought that experience and skill with Berlioz to Thursday night's concert at Symphony Hall. Roméo et Juliette is a sprawling six-movement "Symphonie-dramatique", that combines orchestra, chorus, and solo singers to transform Shakespeare's tragedy into a narrative told largely by the orchestra. The work, consisting of both vocal and instrumental movements, was challenging when Berlioz wrote it in 1839. It remains among his more difficult pieces to bring off in a live performance.

Berlioz' decision to set Shakespeare as a symphony was triggered in 1827, when he attended an English performance of the Bard's works in Paris, featuring one Harriet Smithson. Roméo represents Berlioz himself, smitten with Juliette/Ms. Smithson, who the composer later married and divorced. The Irish actress was also featured as the love-interest in Berlioz' earlier exercise in genre-busting, the Symphonie-fantastique.



Under Mr. Dutoit, the six movements coalesced into a fluent, cohesive whole with a firm sense of dramatic arc. The BSO strings responded well to his direction in the first movement, alternating with loud brass chords to depict street fights between the Montagues and Capulets. The small chorus, accompanying mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink set the stage for the battle between the families and the meeting of the young lovers.

It is a mark of Berlioz' innovative spirit that the lovers are not represented by singers--only by figurations within the orchestra. The vocal solos are reserved for the Narrator (Ms. Fink), Roméo's buddy Mercutio (Jean-Paul Fouchécourt) and Father Laurence (Laurent Naouri). Mr. Fouchécourt made the Queen Mab aria an exercise in fluent French tenor style, producing beautiful tone as he skipped above the sprightly accompaniment the rambling six-movement adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy into a fluent, cohesive whole.

In the next three (mostly) instrumental movements, the orchestra depicts Roméo at the ball, the following balcony scene, and the characters' eventual demise within the tomb of the Capulets. There is also the famous "Queen Mab" scherzo, which expands upon the material of Mercutio's aria to produce fairy music worthy of Mendelssohn. Mr. Dutoit led these movements with senstitivity and sympathy for the star-crossed protagonists, and the Boston forces responded with orchestral playing of the highest caliber.

The full Tanglewood Festival Chorus marched onto the stage for Juliette's funeral procession. The most powerful music in the symphony, the funeral march was played with real weight. In the finale, Mr. Naouri brought gravitas to the role of Father Laurence. As he admonished the assembled Montagues and Capulets, Mr. Naouri sang with smoky, dark tone, cutting through and over the massed orchestral and choral forces behind him.

Berlioz ends the tragedy on a note of reconciliation and an oath of friendship between the families. This  has nothing to do with Shakespeare but serves to brings his most massive symphony to an upward, almost triumphant close. After the tumult of the 2010-2011 season, the Boston players sounded as if the reconciliation was very welcome indeed.

Opera Review: Roméo is Sleeping

Roméo et Juliette at the Met

Piotr Beczala and Hei-Kyung Hong
at the rehearsal of Roméo et Juliette.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera

Monday night's performance of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera featured strong performances from tenor Piotr Beczala and soprano Hei-Kyung Hong in an otherwise unexciting revival of the Shakespearean opera.

This revival has already made headlines for the 11th-hour withdrawal of soprano Angela Gheorghiu. Her replacement was Hei-Kyung Hong. The 51-year old Korean soprano may be a little older than Shakespeare's 14-year old Juliette, but she sang boldly, going up for the high notes in Juliette's Waltz even though her voice thinned noticeably at the top.


As the performance continued (and her voice warmed up) Ms. Hong displayed the soprano warmth and bloom that has made her a longtime fixture at the Met. She was strong in the difficult fourth act, with the long "floating bed" duet with Piotr Beczala, followed by the difficult Potion Scene. Her onstage collapse the dramatic climax of the evening.

Tenor Piotr Beczala was a bluff, enthusiastic Roméo, singing with ardor in the balcony scene and generating real chemistry with his leading lady on the floating bed that is the setting for their Act IV duet. However, he looked lost in the Act III fight scene, standing about without any direction after killing Tybalt, as if the director failed to give him any directions at that point in the opera.

The biggest surprise of the evening was James Morris in the brief, but memorable role of Friar Laurence. The Met's former Wotan sounded ideal in this paternal role, using his woolly, well-oiled bass voice to give gravity to the priest's scenes in Acts III and IV. Mr. Morris has had some rough outings at the Met lately, but this short part was well suited to his fading fach.

Guy Joosten's staging uses the plays Renaissance setting and the idea of star-crossed lovers for a production that combines astrolabes, clocks, trompe l'oeil paintings and the streets of Olde Verona. Occasionally, the back wall cracks open to reveal cosmic landscapes, more suited to the work of Carl Sagan than Shakespeare. These ultimately prove distracting, although the "flying bed" duet remains a theatrical coup.

The performance was undermined by the conducting of tenor-turned-maestro Plàcido Domingo, which lacked that degree of lift that can make Gounod's melodic lines soar. That, combined with the librettists' decision to boil almost all the fight scenes and much of the excitement from Shakespeare's play  made for a long evening. But that's not the Met's fault.