Concert Review: Dancing Against the Current

The Mark Morris Dance Group returns to Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Members of the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Photo © Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts/Mostly Mozart Festival.

Dance is not my beat.

I have never written about ballet. I know little of jazz dance and less of modern choreography other than the occasional gyration the punctuate the grand operas of the 19th century. However last Thursday night at mostly Mozart I was lucky enough to attend a performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group, that was accompanied by three excellent chamber and vocal music performances.

Summer Festival Preview: Mostly Mozart 2018

Bigger, Better, Faster, but still Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Louis Langree (back to camera) leads the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra

When the time came for Lincoln Center to choose between its two signature summer festivals, there was no question: it was Mostly Mozart that had the brand recognition. For 51 years, this month-long festival held the stage at what is now David Geffen Hall, a haven of culture for New York music lovers who were unable or unwilling to leave the city in the summer months.

Concert Review: Robert and Clara (and their friend Johannes)

It's all Schumann and Brahms at Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The 5,000 Fingers of Kirill Gerstein. The pianist played Mostly Mozart this week.
Photo by Marco Borggreve.

The trials and tribulations of the great Romantic composers have always fascinated the classical music-loving public. From the extramarital wanderings of Richard Wagner to Frederic Chopin's stormy relationship with the lady novelist George Sand, it has provided fodder for intermission conversation over coffee and small overpriced sandwiches,. Arguably, the most famous triangle relationship was between three composers: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann (née Wieck) and Johannes Brahms.

Concert Review: The Antic Disposition

The Danish String Quartet play Beethoven.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The members f the Danish String Quartet and their latest construction project.
Photo courtesy Kirshbaum Associates. 

Each summer, the Mostly Mozart Festival is dominated by the main stage orchestra offerings at David Geffen Hall. On Thursday evening, however, the ears of its audience were attuned to chamber music. This concert at Alice Tully Hall featured two of the great string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven, as played by that excellent and fast-rising ensemble, the Danish String Quartet. 

Summer Festival Preview: Tanglewood

Another summer under the trees offers gods, rainbows and Mahler.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Koussevitsky Concert Shed at Tanglewood, guarded by a really big tree.
Photo courtesy the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Whisper the name "Tanglewood" and you will tickle the conscience of the novice classical music-goer, and fire the memories of those who have walked its grassy paths and visited the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Located on a sprawling estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, this is the Cadillac of summer festivals, offering symphonies, chamber music and opera to a throng of devotees who make the pilgrimage again and again.

Concert Review: Exit Under Fireworks

Alan Gilbert leads the Concerts in the Parks.
by Paul J. Pelkonenppelkonen@gmail.com

And he's out. Alan Gilbert gave his last Central Park concert as music director
on Wednesday night. Photo by Chris Lee © 2017 New York Philharmonic.

Alan Gilbert gave his final New York concerts as music director of the New York Philharmonic this week, leading the annual Concerts in the Parks series in four boroughs. Wednesday's concert on the Great Lawn of Central Park was blessed with magnificent weather: clear skies and 80 degrees. Perfect.

Summer Festival Preview: Concerts in the Parks

The New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert offer free music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert (standing) leads the New York Philharmonic
at the Concerts in the Parks. Photo by Chris Lee.

The New York Philharmonic subscription series is ended, and with it the 2016-17 classical music season. However, we're not quite done yet. Tuesday night marks the start of the week-long Concerts in the Parks series, the last of Alan Gilbert's official duties as the orchestra's Music Director.

Concert Review: The Three Faces of Wolfgang

Mostly Mozart tours the composer's symphonies.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pianist Richard Goode. Photo from Frank Salomon and Associates © 2016

Fifty years ago, Mostly Mozart was born. Its mission: bring Mozart's music to Manhattanites in the dog days of summer. The idea of an indoor (and air-conditioned) summer festival proved popular with concert-goers. In recent years, the Festival has veered from this mission, incorporating Beethoven and even Brahms in its programming. However this week's program, conducted by Louis Langrée and featuring New York-based pianist Richard Goode was true to the original mission: it was all Mozart.

Opera Review: Truth And Consequences

Le Villi and La Navarraise at the Bard Festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sean Pannikar (left) and Talise Trevigne in a tense moment from Puccini's Le Villi.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2016 Bard Music Festival.

This summer's Bard Music Festival is focused almost entirely on the music of Giacomo Puccini, the Italian opera composer who stands at the end of a four hundred-year tradition of opera as that country's dominant art form. From his early competition pieces to the unfinished wonders of his final opera Turandot, Puccini was the climax of a long line of composers and somehow the end of the road.

Concert Review: Lifting the Shroud

Paavo Järvi and Martin Fröst at Mostly Mozart.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The man and his horn: clarinetist Martin Fröst.
Photo from MartinFrost.se

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra  got a chance to flex its musical muscles on Friday evening. They played the Clarinet Concerto by their namesake composer, bracketed by works from Arvo Pärt and Ludwig van Beethoven. This week’s guest conductor  was Paavo Järvi, eldest son of the conductor Neeme Järvi and (like his father) a versatile maestro with respectable international credentials.

Concert Review: The Royal Tasting Table

Mozart opera served tapas-style in The Illuminated Heart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Burning down the house: Christine Goerke (center) sings Elettra in The Illuminated Heart
as Louis Langrée conducts. Photo © Richard Termine for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

For an arts organization trying to interest new listeners in opera, the hardest thing to do is to convert skeptics to the power and beauty of this 500-year-old art form. Presumably, that was the intent behind The Illuminated Heart, a glitzy 75-minute arrangement of Mozart arias and ensembles that kicked off the 50th anniversary celebration of Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center. Exactly the length of an old-fashioned CD, this program reminded one of those Mozart compilations that flooded record shops in 1985 following Amadeus' eight Oscar wins.

The Night of the Holy Bail

Andris Nelsons is out of Bayreuth's new Parsifal.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Andris Nelsons at the helm of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Photo © 2016 the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

According to reports published today by The New York Times and the Boston Globe, Andris Nelsons, the fiery Latvian conductor who is the still-new music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra has exited from his commitment to open the 2016 Bayreuth Festival and its new production of Wagner's Parsifal.

Concert Review: His Back Pages

Mostly Mozart 2015 opens with rarities from the composer’s catalogue.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Louis Langrée (center) leads the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.
Photo © 2015 by Richard Termine for the Mostly Mozart Festival.

Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 37, he left a catalogue of music that is staggering in its size and artistic breath. Mozart was five years old when he wrote his first three keyboard pieces, and 14 when his first successful opera (Mitridate) premiered. On Tuesday night, Mostly Mozart offered a look into the dark corners of Mozart’s fast catalogue, playing a program of realities rarities to open its 49th festival season.

Opera Review: March to the Scaffold

Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites at Caramoor. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sisters: the cast of Dialogues of the Carmelites with Hei-Kyung Hong at the right.
Photo by Gabe Palacio © 2015 Caramoor Festival.

The Bel Canto at Caramoor series specializes in the opera of the early 19th century. But this Saturday, music director Will Crutchfield thrust this annual summer opera festival squarely into the 20th century with the first Caramoor performance of François Poulenc's powerful 1957 opera Dialogues of the Carmelites. This semi-staged performance, directed by Victoria Crutchfield featured a strong cast of veteran singers mixed with raw but very promising talent.

Concert Review: At Long Last, Mozart

Mostly Mozart 2013 concludes with the last three symphonies.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Louis Langrée led Friday's Mostly Mozart concert.
Photo © 2013 Lincoln Center.

This year at Mostly Mozart, the festival's namesake composer has been largely ignored in favor of an exploration of the major works of Ludwig van Beethoven by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. (And if you've been reading this blog for the last month, you know that the results have been mixed.) On Friday night, music director Louis Langrée led the final program of this year's Festival, a triptych of Mozart's three final symphonies. The orchestra, for its part, sounded relieved at the prospect of playing an all-Mozart evening.

Concert Review: Trip Through Her Wires

Isabelle Faust plays a doubleheader at Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Isabelle Faust and her Stradivarius, the "Sleeping Beauty."
Photo by Marco Borggreve  © 2010 harmonia mundi.

The violinist Isabelle Faust and her Stradivarius were at the center of two performances on Saturday night at the Mostly Mozart festival. The first featured the German violinist as soloist in Mozart's Turkish Concerto. The second, an intimate gathering at the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse featured two of Bach's solo works for the violin: the Sonata No. 2 and Partita No. 3.

Opera Review: Divorce, English Style

Read my review of Henry VIII on The Classical Review.

Catherine of Aragon (left) and her lady-in-waiting (and successor) Anne Boleyn.
The two Queens figure prominently in Saint-Saëns' opera Henry VIII.
Photo manipulation by the author. 

Those of you who read this blog know that my writing sometimes appears on sources other than Superconductor. That said, here's a link to my review of the Camille Saint-Saëns opera  Henry VIII, which closed the 2012 Bard Music Festival in regal fashion on Sunday afternoon.

Here's an excerpt, to whet your...axe.

"The jewels in this performance’s crown were the two queens: soprano Ellie Dehn as Catherine of Aragon and mezzo Jennifer Holloway as Anne Boleyn. Dehn began as an icy presence, but that facade cracked as the reality of her situation became apparent. She achieved dramatic heights in the final act, with a long aria that recalled the plight of another operatic queen in a similar circumstance: Elisabeth de Valois in Verdi's Don Carlos. "

Concert Review: Wind, Weather and Beethoven

Pablo Heras-Casado's stormy debut Caramoor debut.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Stormy skies: conductor Pablo Heras-Casado faced the elements at Caramoor on Sunday.
 Photoshop by the author. 

Sunday afternoon's concert at Caramoor featuring the Orchestra of St. Luke's with pianist Emanuel Ax was supposed to be a coming-out party for  Pablo Heras-Casado: his first concert as the orchestra's new Principal Conductor since taking over the post in December of 2011.

However, the weather had other ideas.

We arried at Caramoor about 3:30pm, driving up from Brooklyn, through muggy heat under overcast skies. Sitting at the picnic tables, we were finishing our meal when I looked up. "Storm's coming," I said, finishing my last bite of chicken. I was looking at the huge grey stratus cloud looming through the trees.

"How soon?" said Emily, my significant other and provider of said meal.

"About five minutes." (I have a "barometer" in my right leg thanks to an old knee injury. It was starting to throb gently.) We packed up qucickly. I refilled the water bottles, and we got to our seats in the Venetian Theater (an outdoor amphitheater covered by a large tent) as the rain started.

This was a full-fledged storm, an hour of drenching rain that thrashed the trees and drummed on the canopy overhead. Finally, there was an announcement: the concert would go forward, but with the Beethoven symphony (the Seventh) moved to the opening half. It would, in any case be easier to hear than the other works on the program.

Opera Preview: Le Roi malgré lui

Leon Botstein unearths a rare gem by Emmanuel Chabrier.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
"I would rather have written Le Roi malgré lui than the Ring of the Nibelungen."--Maurice Ravel

Costume design for the Cossacks in Le Roi malgré lui.
Costume design sketch by Mattie Ulrich © Bard Festival 2012.

This year's Bard Festival is devoted to the music and culture of 19th century France. As a result, the July opera offering at the Fisher Center (located on the picturesque campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson) isLe Roi malgré lui, ("The King in Spite of Himself") a rarely performed comedy by French composer Emmauel Chabrier.

Chabrier is best remembered by opera lovers for writing L'Etoile, a surreal comedy of kingship and succession that has been mounted occasionally at Glimmerglass and at the New York City Opera. Le Roi deals with some similar themes.

It is the story of a ne'er-do-well French nobleman, Henri, who somehow finds himself in line to take the throne of Poland. The opera's plot mainly consists of the reluctant king's increasingly convoluted efforts to escape the country and the pressures of his job.

Opera Review: Hitting the Mark

Rossini's Guillaume Tell at Caramoor.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

His aim is true: Daniel Mobbs as William Tell.
Photo by Gino Palacio © 2011 Caramoor Festival.

Friday night's performance of Rossini's final opera Guillaume Tell may be the last of this year's Bel Canto at Caramoor series. But tonight's performance at that gorgeous neo-Venetian arts colony in Katonah, NY marked a continued renaissance for this underrated, underappreciated opera.