Oberon's Grove

Dancing With Glass @ The Joyce

Above: pianist Maki Namekawa, photo by Steven Pisano

~ Author: Oberon

Tuesday November 28th, 2023 - The long-awaited opening of Dancing With Glass at The Joyce: a program wherein several of Philip Glass's études were performed by pianist Maki Namekawa; five of the études had been choreographed by prominent artists in the danceworld: Lucinda Childs, Chanon Judson of Urban Bush Women, Justin Peck of the New York City Ballet, Brazilian tap artist Leonardo Sandoval, and Los Angeles-based choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber.

A packed house, which included some luminaries of the NYC dance scene, seemed mesmerized both by the music and the dancing. Ms. Namekawa is a pianist with a special affinity for the works of contemporary composers; she played eleven of the études in the course of the evening, commencing with the spellbinding Etude #1. Her playing was remarkably clear, committed, and soul-filling.

The dancing commenced with a fabulous tap-dance setting of the 7th étude, choreographed by Leonardo Sandoval, who was tapping along with his mates Ana Tomioshi, Orlando Hernandez, and Lucas Santana (photo above by Steven Pisano). Noé Kains was onstage with the quartet, and he was dancing along when suddenly he stepped to the edge of the stage and eased his way down to the pit where he took over the keyboard and played the 7th étude to perfection. Meanwhile, his fellow tapsters - such gorgeous humans - continued to dance in sync, with brilliant solo moves etched into the choreography. An exhilarating start to the evening's dancing.

Above: Bobbi Jene Smith, photo by Steven Pisano

Bobbi Jene Smith (co-choreographer of the memorable DEO for the Martha Graham Dance Company in 2019) and her husband Or Schraiber both choreographed and performed the familiar Etude #8. On a dusky, hazy stage, an anxious man and a moody woman take us thru various states of a romantic relationship. Each dressed all in black, with Ms. Smith's luxuriant hair playing its own role, the dancers are hypnotic movers and shapers of phrase. Passion underscores everything: the wounded man is rejected, but - true to life - within seconds the couple are kissing again. Touches of humor are subtly woven in...and at the end, aggression turns to peace in the twinkling of an eye. The piece, marvelous in every way, made me think of so many evenings spent at home with my partner. 

Tall, lithe, and elegant in a sky-blue Josie Natori frock, Chanon Judson of Urban Bush Women (above, photo by Steven Pisano) took the stage for Etude #11. John Torres' lighting - a major contribution to the evening's pleasures - was especially perfect here. Ms. Judson danced with compelling authority and grace to the vividly dramatic music. Veering from madness to repose, this long-limbed goddess filled the space with her magnetic presence and riveting moves. Overcome by trembling, she is finally becalmed as the pulsating music fades to silence.

Justin Peck's setting of Etude #6 brought a stunning performance from Patricia Delgado (above, photo by Steven Pisano); I had only seen Ms. Delgado once previously, when she appeared in a 2009 gala here in New York featuring many alumni from the School of American Ballet. In her Glass solo tonight, she was fascinating to watch. Clad in a black trouser outfit, she is seated in a chair at curtain-rise. The music's fast staccati underscore her restlessness. She at times ventures a few steps from her chair, but always returns to this safe haven. As the music turns grand, her mental instability becomes palpable. Ms. Delgado is both a gorgeous mover and a subtle actress. At the end, unable to cope, the woman seeks to hide herself from the world under her chair.

Clad in white and looking like angels, dancers Caitlin Scranton and Kyle Gerry (above, photo by Steven Pisano) reveled in the flow of Lucinda Childs' luminous choreography in Etude #18. Sometimes dancing side-by-side and at other times moving about the space with a sense of other-worldly beauty, the dancers perfectly embodied the lyricism of this particular Glass piece. 

Bringing the evening full circle, Ms. Namekawa played the last of the études: #20. This rather long work gave us a chance to reflect on the evening, whilst savouring the pianist's poised musicality. As the applause commenced, all of the dancers appeared onstage to receive the audience's wholehearted accolades. Ms. Namekawa then drew Philip Glass from his seat to the side of the piano, while the standing crowd hailed him with a joyous ovation.

All photos by Steven Pisano.

~ Oberon

Golden Gate Gala ~ 1997

Frederica von Stade (above) and a host of other stars gathered to celebrate the 75th anniversary of San Francisco Opera with a televised gala in 1997.

Watch and listen to highlights from the concert here.

60 Years Ago @ The Old Met

November 27th, 2023 - Sixty years ago this evening, I attended my first Metropolitan Opera performance: DON GIOVANNI, at the Old Met. I was in my fourth year of hardcore opera fandom, tuning in for every Met broadcast on Saturday afternoons, and building my record collection.

I'd been to some opera performances at the Cincinnati Zoo, at Syracuse, and even in Oswego, NY, just a few miles from home. But The Met was my goal, and on this late Autumn evening, just a few days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I finally found myself in the now rather dilapidated Hall that Milton Cross had described so many times over the airwaves; it was like a dream come true.

Read about my unforgettable experience here.

Lydia Johnson Dance @ Westbeth 2023 ~ Gallery

Above: Michael Miles and Laura DiOrio in CHAPTERS; photo by Steven Pisano

A gallery of performance photos by Steven Pisano from Lydia Johnson Dance's November 12th, 2023 matinee at Westbeth. Read about the afternoon here.

The following photos are from FOR ELI, a ballet dedicated to the memory of a young pianist:

Catherine Gurr

MaliQ Williams and Michael Miles

MaliQ and Michael

Michael and MaliQ

Emily Sarkissian and MaliQ Williams

The following images are from Lydia Johnson's newest work, CHAPTERS, having its premiere performances:

Laura DiOrio and Michael Miles

MinSeon Kim and Arieh Bates Vinueza 

Cara McManus and MaliQ Williams

Michael Miles and Arieh Bates-Vinueza

Cara McManus and MaliQ Williams

The program ended with a revival of Lydia's NIGHT OF THE FLYING HORSES (premiered in 2013):

MinSeon Kim and Quinton Guthier

MinSeon Kim and Cara McManus

~ All photos by Steven Pisano

Biancamaria Casoni ~ Dalila in Italian

Biancamaria Casoni sings Dalila's seduction aria from SAMSON & DALILA in Italian. Ms. Casoni was my first-ever Cherubino in NOZZE DI FIGARO when the Rome Opera came to the (then) New Met in 1968.

I love the subtleties in Ms. Casoni's interpretation; she makes Dalila's aria intimately persuasive. Her phrasing and the softness of her timbre are alluring, and her long line and vocal control are impressive...especially as it's a live performance.

Listen here. 

Montserrat Caballé ~ The Swan

Montserrat Caballé vocalizes to an arrangement of The Swan, from Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals.

Watch and listen here.

Bergonzi/Gulin ~ CHENIER duet

Ángeles Gulín and Carlo Bergonzi sing "Vicino a te", the final duet from Giordano's ANDREA CHENIER, from a performance given at London in 1970. Anton Guadagno conducts.

Listen here.

Victoria de los Angeles sings Chausson

The beloved Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles (above) sings Ernest Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer with the Orchestre de l"Association des Concerts Lamoureux, conducted by Jean-Pierre Jacquillat. The recording dates from 1969.

Listen here.

Lisette Oropesa ~ Bellini's I PURITANI

Lisette Oropesa sings Elvira in Bellini's I PURITANI in a concert performance given by the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, in July 2022.

Watch and listen here.

Cast:

Arturo Talbot - Xabier Anduaga; Elvira - Lisette Oropesa; Sir Riccardo Forth - Davide Luciano; Sir Giorgio - Gianluca Buratto; Enrichetta - Chiara Tirotta; Lord Gualtiero Walton - Nicolò Donini; Sir Bruno Robertson - Saverio Fiore

Conductor: Giacomo Sagripanti

Tormis/Britten/Prokofiev @ The NY Phil

Above: violinist Alena Baeva, photo by Andrej Grilc

Author: Ben Weaver

Friday November 17th, 2023 - Maestro Paavo Järvi returned to the New York Philharmonic’s David Geffen Hall for concerts featuring less familiar works by two of 20th Century’s greatest composers: Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev.

Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, Op. 15 - the only work he composed in that genre - was written in 1938-39, soon after Britten heard the world premiere performance of Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto in 1936. Indeed, the soloist who premiered Berg’s work, Antonio Brosa, would premiere Britten’s Concerto in 1940 conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, and do so with the New York Philharmonic in NYC. (In another bit of trivia, Britten composed some of the concerto while staying with Aaron Copland.) Britten revised the composition as late as 1965 (when he heard that Jascha Heifetz was considering performing it, though Heifetz would supposedly go on to declare the work “unplayable”), and it was this final edition that violinist Alena Baeva performed in these concerts. (It's playable after all.)

Opening with a series of timpani strokes can only evoke Beethoven’s Violin Concerto from more than a century earlier. The violin enters with a lament in the instrument’s highest registers - something Britten does often in the concerto. The second half of the first movement is taken over by a sort of a march, a persistent distant thumping, which reminded me of the villagers hunting Peter Grimes in Britten’s opera, composed a few years later.

Ms. Baeva, in her New York Philharmonic debut, makes a rather small and tinny sound that struggled to make an impression in the concerto’s dramatic moments. To Maestro Järvi’s credit, he kept the orchestra under control, so as not to cover the soloist altogether. But in the more intimate parts, Ms. Baeva was a deeply moving narrator, which makes me want to hear her in a chamber music setting. In the extended cadenza that concludes the second movement, Ms. Baeva was mesmerizing and dazzling. The final movement is a series of variations in the form of a passacaglia, and it concludes with a lament (movement is marked Andante lento), and here Ms. Baeva’s lyrical side was wonderfully moving.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6 in E-flat minor, Op. 111 lives - unfairly - in the shadow of his more famous Fifth. Composed in 1945-47, and premiered later that year by Evgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic, it is a magnificent work that never drags despite its roughly 45-minute run time.

The Sixth’s fortunes changed over the years. Despite an acclaimed premiere in 1947, it was soon condemned by all the usual Stalinist suspects and disappeared from Soviet concert halls until the 1960s. (It was more popular in the West; Leopold Stokowski first conducted it with the NY Philharmonic in 1949). One of the complaints against the work was that it was not cheerful enough to inspire the Soviet people. Which is perhaps fair enough, but Prokofiev was not trying to cheer anyone up with this particular symphony. It opens darkly in the low strings before moving on to more lyrical themes. The second movement is the most emotional part of the symphony, woodwinds shrieking in agony. And the third movement is the most cheerful of the three, but not cheerful enough to appease Stalin.

The Sixth sounds to me like the most mature of Prokofiev’s work. It never disintegrates into circus music, which - no matter how ironically - can on occasion be tiresome. Paavo Järvi certainly has this music in his bones and the NY Philharmonic delivered a stupendous performance. I ended up taking almost no notes as the music played because I was so hypnotized by what we heard. This is the sort of music the New York Philharmonic plays as well as anyone, and better than most. 

Also included on the program was an unknown to most of us Overture No. 2 by the Estonian composer Veljo Tormis. Composed in 1958-59 it is a thrilling, expertly crafted work. Its highly dramatic, driven, almost cinematic opening (it would fit many movie chases beautifully), gives way to a lovely, if brief, cello solo (Patric Jee as the principal cellist in this performance). The middle section of the overture is reduced to a wonderful chamber-scale (just three violins at one point) before the breathless opening section returns. The work ends with three chords, long pauses between each one. Frequently, an audience will applaud prematurely, and certainly with an unfamiliar composition such as this, the risks were high. And yet - the silence held, Paavo Järvi controlling not just the orchestra, but, however briefly, the audience as well.

Which brings me to a brief point about audience behavior and etiquette; we all know that both have degraded seriously over the years. At this performance, sitting just an empty seat away myself and my companion, a young woman played Candy Crush on her phone the entire evening. She was there with two friends, who seemed more interested in the music than she was...but they did not ask her to stop. I am reminded how, some years ago, the actor and playwright Wallace Shawn got in trouble at a Carnegie Hall concert for yelling at another audience member for behaving badly. Perhaps we should have been celebrating Mr. Shawn instead.

~ Ben Weaver