Oberon's Grove

Simionato's Dalila ~ in Italian

Giuletta Simionato sings Dalila's seduction aria in Italian.

Listen here.

DON CARLO ~ Bucharest 1967

Above: basso Nicolae Florei

A performance of Verdi's DON CARLO given at Bucharest in 1967. The finale is missing. Some nice names among the smaller roles!

Listen here.

Philip II - NICOLAE FLOREI; Don Carlos - CORNEL STAVRU; Rodrigo - NICOLAE HERLEA; Grand Inquisitor - VALENTIN; Elisabetta - ELENA DIMA-TOROIMAN; Princess Eboli - ELENA CERNEI; Monk - CONSTANTIN DUMITRU;  Tebaldo - ILEANA COTRUBAS;  Lerma - VASILE MOLDOVEANU; Heavenly Voice - MARIA SINDILARU

Conductor: ALBERTO EREDE

(Note the predictive casting of Tebaldo and Count Lerma!)

Closing Night of the 2024 MATA Festival

~ Author: Shoshana Klein

Saturday May 18th, 2024 - The MATA Festival is something I've heard about for a few years but this was the first time I'd been to an event. The concert was Saturday night at the Museum de Fotografiska, (photo at top of the article) which is a very cool space. There were flowers and vines hanging from the ceiling in the elevator in the staircases. The space that the concert was in was on the 6th floor an was set up in a way that was chaotic but felt very edgy. When we got there it was full, and there was a bar and it was dimly lit. 

 

The space worked pretty well for a concert, although it was hard to see the performers since there was no stage. The first half had three new pieces while the second half was dedicated to  the world premiere of Olivier Glissant’s orchestration of Philip Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia.

 

 

Above: Wenbin Lyu

 

The first piece was Wenbin Lyu’s graphic score, Duke's Fantasy I. Each of the three movements in the 10-minute piece had a short poem, an image, and some notated instructions on a musical staff. The images were a little bit whimsical which fit with Wenbin and his personality. There were some electronics tracks and a small ensemble playing. The movements were pretty distinctive, and overall it was a nice piece. I always think that being an audience member for a graphic score is an interesting experience. There's always so much more I want to know about how the performers decided to perform a piece, how improvised it is, and how literally they're taking the imagery as written music.

 

The second piece was Mariel Terán’s Manos de Tierra, and we were given instructions to close our eyes and experience the piece that way. The piece consisted of a fixed media track, and the six or so performers were playing flutes that the composer had brought from Bolivia. They surrounded and moved around the audience to make a very immersive experience. Having our eyes closed was definitely a cool way to experience the piece. 

 

 

For the third piece - Anthony R. Green's Connections - a small ensemble of performers were onstage. a small ensemble. Audience members were all instructed to open a live video feed of the composer. While the performers played on stage, Anthony was moving and speaking on our phones. Since internet service isn't perfect, the effect of this was a kind of ethereal, echoing sound. 

 

I really liked the phone effect, which made us feel like we were all involved, and that we were all able to interact if we wanted to. I think there's a lot of potential for the comments on the video to be interesting, but in this case they were all kind of weird and usually unrelated. The piece also had projections of photos behind the performers that were scenes of New York City. There is no real explanation of what the piece was about or or what was happening. A lot of what Anthony was saying was about connection and whether or not we were connected to each other. The musical material seemed mostly there as a support but did a good job of that.

 

 

Above: Oliver Glissant

 

The Glissant arrangement of the Philip Glass piece after intermission was for a slightly larger ensemble - more like a sinfonietta than a chamber group. I do like Philip Glass and this piece seemed like a good one. However, something was lost either in the arrangement, rehearsal, or something else. Philip Glass tends to be trickier than it sounds, with rhythmic shifts, lots of unisons that are hard to play in tune and simply repetition that's hard to keep track of. This piece in particular did go on for quite a while, with many movements. Still, the ensemble was noticeably struggling and Oliver Glissant, the conductor and arranger, was visibly frustrated at points. This piece also had projections of sort of surreal Amazon-influenced images, which were nice to have but not obviously tied to the music aside from kind of scene-setting. 

 

Overall, this was an interesting and enjoyable concert, and a good program with lots of variety.

 

~ Shoshana Klein

Luciana Serra as the Queen of the Night

Luciana Serra sings both arias of the Queen of the Night in this video from the Metropolitan Opera's David Hockney production of ZAUBERFLOETE, a 1991 telecast performance. Francisco Araiza and Kathleen Battle appear as Tamino and Pamina, and James Levine conducts.

Watch and listen here.

Leontyne's Luminous Aida

Of all the various recordings (studio or live) of Leontyne Price as Aida that I have heard over the years, this performance from Rome in 1966 takes the top prize.

Listen here.

Aida - Leontyne Price; Radamès - Giorgio Casellato Lamberti; Amneris - Mirella Parutto Boyer; Amonasro - Mario Zanasi; Ramfis - Franco Pugliese; Il Re di Egitto - Luigi Roni; Priestess - Mirella Fiorentini; Messenger - Gabriele De Julis

Conductor: Oliviero de Fabritiis

 

Lisette Oropesa Meets King Charles III

May 16, 2024 - Lisette Oropesa meets King Charles III at the Royal Opera House gala honoring Maestro Antonio Pappano.

Watch here.

Lisette is at 1:50; next to her is Ermonela Jaho, and a bit later, it's Augul Akhmetshina, (wearing a tux and a long ponytail).

Jonathan Tetelman ~ Amor ti vieta

Jonathan Tetelman sings "Amor ti vieta" from Giordano's FEDORA, with pianist Sophia Muñoz.

Watch and listen here.

Read about Jonathan's latest triumph at The Met here.

Parsons Dance @ The Joyce ~ 2024

~ Author: Oberon

Tuesday May 14th, 2024 - Parsons Dance, now approaching their 40th birthday, opened tonight at The Joyce with a program of three premieres alongside classics from the Parsons repertoire. 

An enthusiastic crowd - among them several luminaries from the Gotham dance scene - gathered at The Joyce this evening for an exhilarating program. The performance opened with the world premiere of Jamar Roberts' Juke. Jamar, whose recent We The People for the Martha Graham company rocked my world, chose Miles Davis's Spanish Key as his musical setting. The lighting, by Christopher S. Chambers, was dazzling - shot thru with lots of red - and Christine Darch's costuming completed a terrific stage picture.

The work is a series of solos, interspersed with duets, trios, and passages for the full ensemble. Since most of the dancers currently in the Company are new to me, I can't put names to faces like I used to back in the day. But they all danced up a storm in this quirky, jazzy piece.

Next up, the inimitable Zoey Anderson wowed the crowd in Robert Battle's fantastical 1996 solo Takademe; speaking of quirky, this piece takes the cake. In puffy red pants and standing in a pool of light, Zoey begins to move hypnotically to the rhythmic speech-song of Sheila Chandra's Speaking in Tongues II. There's also some heavy breathing to be heard as this hilarious tour de force piece speeds on its way. Zoey brought down the house. 

The world premiere of David Parsons' The Shape of Us again effectively paired lighting by Mr. Chambers and costume designs by Ms. Darch. The ballet is set to music by Son Lux, which is spacey to start, then turning oozy and primordial. The opening passage finds the eight dancers in semi-silhouette, walking and then running back and forth across the stage. At times they seem like aliens. The music slows to a pulsing beat, taking on a growling sound. The dance moves to a perfect finish, but then goes on. A sense of community has been established, though it might be an illusion.

A commissioned work from choreographer Penny Saunders, Thick as Thieves, is set to music by Michael Wall, performed live by cellist Lily Gelfand with the composer doubling as pianist and trumpeter. Long coats by costumier Barbara Erin Deto are a signature element in this dancework, which commences with a drumbeat. Solo passages mix with dancing for the whole ensemble. Sometimes everyone dances in unison; these people are definitely up to something, but we don't know exactly what.

Mr. Chambers' lighting is again perfect, as are the two musicians. There's a passage where the dancers hum, and a poignant cello solo from Ms. Gelfand. Then the dancers seem to be departing, heading on to make mischief elsewhere. But an added duet commences; the composer turns from his keyboard and takes up a trumpet.

David Parsons' iconic strobe-lit solo Caught was brilliantly danced tonight by Megan Garcia, who moved about the space creating the illusion that her feet never touch the ground. I have seen this piece so many tines that I should be used to it by now, but again tonight it made me smile in admiration of the enduring fascination this most original of David Parsons' works inspires. Ms. Garcia really nailed it, and her fully-stretched jetées were particularly outstanding. There are always Caught Newbies in a Parsons audience, and their gasps of disbelief and bursts of applause seem always to fuel the dancer throughout the solo's six minute time-span.

The evening ended with David Parsons' Whirlaway, dating from 2014. Lit, as is Caught, by long-time Parsons collaborator the late Howell Binkley, the full Company dances to music by Alain Toussaint. Solos and duets spring up along the way in this big-beat dancework. Zoey Anderson's solo work in Whirlaway stood out...she is a fabulous force in the dance world.

The pandemic short-circuited my connection with several NY dance companies; by the time things started up again, quite a few dancers had moved on, or moved away...including some of the Parsons dancers I knew - and loved - during the past decade. I think of them often, and sometimes find them on Facebook; they've given me so many wonderful memories. But David has always had the good fortune to find excellent people to work with, and tonight the Company really looked great.

Can I make it to the 40th anniversary?  I'm certainly going to try. 

~ Oberon 

Sutherland/Pavarotti: Live from Lincoln Center ~ 1979

I well remember watching the 'live' telecast of this concert by Dame Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti on January 22, 1979, conducted by Richard Bonynge.

Watch and listen here.

Leontyne Price ~ Liebestod

Leontyne Price sings Isolde's Liebestod at a concert given at Carnegie Hall in 1980, conducted by Sir Georg  Solti.

Listen here.