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At Home With Wagner V

These days I hardly listen to anything but Wagner at home, and invariably it’s one of the RING Cycle operas. Thanks to my friend Dmitry I have a stack of CDs as yet un-listened-to. Today I’ve set out on a 1963 Bayreuth WALKURE, led with distinction by Rudolf Kempe, which starts with a truly urgent rendering of the ‘chase’ music that serves as the opera’s prelude. Although the sound quality is erratic, with some over-load and distortion, it’s certainly more than tolerable.

Pictured above, soprano Jutta Meyfarth – yet another ‘forgotten’ voice – may not have an ideally warm or expansive voice for Sieglinde’s music: her timbre is a bit hard. But she has a great way with words and she constantly is alert to the dramatic nuances of the music and words. I listened to the last scene of Act I, starting with Meyfarth’s whispered ““Schläfst du Gast?”, several times, liking her more and more with each hearing.

The Finnish soprano Anita Välkki (above) tosses off one of the most brilliant renderings of “Ho-Jo-To-Ho!” that I ever heard. This under-rated soprano, her career overshadowed by the more famous Nilsson, Rysanek, Bjoner and Lindholm, has a bright and at times girlish vocal quality. In the “Todesverkündigung” – the great scene in which Brunnhilde announces to Siegmund his imminent death – Välkki shows clarity of expression and considerable beauty of tone.

Mezzo-soprano Grace Hoffman (above) rounds out a strong trio of female leads in this WALKURE. Her wide-ranging voice, her intense sense of Fricka’s wronged dignity, and her verbal and dynamic alertness make a capital effect.

Hans Hotter was in his mid-fifties at the time of this performance, and he had been singing Wotan for a quarter-century. If vocally he is a bit less fresh than in the 1953 Keilberth/Bayreuth performance, he is remarkably authoritative and relishes both the powerful and subtle moments of this great role.

Hans Hotter was vehemently anti-Hitler and when he was queried during the de-Nazification interviews following the end of the war as to why Hitler would have kept his recordings in his private collection, Hotter replied that the Pope had some of them, too.

Gottlob Frick again fills me with admiration here, singing Hunding. A somewhat less-than-stellar Siegmund – Fritz Uhl – still has his moments, but though I don’t pretend to speak German, some of his diction seemed rather odd.

The third act is strong, with Meyfarth convincing in Sieglinde’s distress and Välkki doing some warm, espressive singing from “War es so schmälich…” to her final plea with her father to ring the Valkyrie Rock with fire. Hotter is Wotan – yet again – with the power of his wrath slowly subsiding into the tenderness of a father bidding farewell to his beloved child. Perhaps no other singer has such an innate quality of heartbreak in the voice.

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Above: Tomasz Konieczny and Petra Lang

The Polish bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny made a magnificent vocal impression when he sang Jochanaan in Strauss’s SALOME in a concert performance by the Vienna State Opera at Carnegie Hall in March 2014. Konieczny is the Wotan in the recently released WALKURE on the Penta Tone label, part of a complete RING Cycle conducted by Marek Janowski and recorded in a series of live concert performances in Berlin starting in 2012.

Very curious to hear Konieczny’s voice again, but not wanting to delve into the full WALKURE until I’d first had a chance to hear the RHEINGOLD, I listened to the final scene of the WALKURE as a free-standing excerpt. The bass-baritone sings powerfully and is a vibrant, dramatic presence especially as he takes his errant daughter Brunnhilde to task for having disobeyed his direct orders. Konieczny is quite splendid while letting off steam, though the poetry of the later scene where his bids farewell to Brunnhilde and puts her to sleep on the Valkyrie Rock is not quite yet in the singer’s expressive realm. He will doubtless attain that depth of understanding and an ability to communicate it as he sings the role in coming years. Marek Janowski’s conducting is alert and vivid, and Petra Lang – who has given some striking performances as a mezzo-soprano – now sings Brunnhilde. And if she does not seem destined to achieve the exalted echelon occupied by such great Wangeriennes as Nilsson, Behrens and Dame Gwyneth, Lang nonetheless makes a wonderful impression is her moving rendering of “War es so schmählich…” and is perfectly satisfying in the rest of the act.

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I acquired the first two acts of a Stockholm WALKURE from 1975 mainly to hear Barbro Ericson’s Fricka and to have a sampling of another voice that had eluded me til now: soprano Siv Wennberg. Rudolf Kempe’s conducting again seems ideal.

Kempe has this music in his blood and gives yet another great reading of the score. Ms. Ericson, one errant top note aside, is a passionate and exciting Fricka. Neither Ms. Wennberg nor her Siegmund, Helge Brilioth, are likely to displace other favorite interpreters of these roles in the Völsungen sweepstakes, but both are very good story-tellers. Thru dynamic and verbal shadings, the soprano gives us quite an intriguing “Der Männer Sippe“, and – earlier – the tenor does likewise as he tells the story of how he came to be under Hunding’s roof. Mr. Brilioth will later have some pitch issues, and his cries of “Wälse!’ Wälse!’” suffer from very bad audio overload. Ms. Wennberg holds steady throughout the first two acts.

As Brunnhilde, Berit Lindholm lauches a pert, eager “Ho-Jo-To-Ho“, and she makes a good impression in the Todesverkundigung: the very heart of the opera. David Ward, whose Wotan I so thoroughly enjoyed in the 1965 Covent Garden performance conducted by Solti, is understandably a bit less fresh vocally here in Stockholm ten years on, but he is still very impressive and expressive in his long monolog (so well-supportedby Kempe) and he gives a violently dismissive “Geh!” as he dispatches Hunding to his fate at the very end of Act II.

The most surprising aspect of this performance is a superbly sung Hunding from basso Rolf Cederlöf (above). This is a voice I’d never heard before, and even as a name he was unknown to me. It’s a beautiful, deep, voluminous sound, and from his entrance the vocal ‘temperature’ of the first act rises: he seems to inspire Wennberg and Brilioth in their narratives…and in turn they are all inspired by Kempe.

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Continuing in WALKURE mode, I recently took from the library the 1947 discs of Toscanini rehearsing the first act of the opera for a concert perfomance. This issue is a favorite among collectors as it gives an aural portrait of the fiery conductor at work. The Sieglinde is Rose Bampton (above) and I was very much taken with her interpretation. Wanting to hear more of Bampton, I turned to a 1944 Met broadcast of WALKURE conducted by George Szell. This seventy-year-old performance begins with a breathlessly-paced prelude depicting Siegmund’s rush thru the forest; Szell brings the first act full circle with an equally speedy burst of energy in the postlude as brother and sister rush off to their unknown fate.

Lauritz Melchior, that tireless Wagner-machine, is Siegmund. The paragon of heldentenors, Melchior sang over 500 performances at The Met alone; his career there lasted nearly a quarter-century (debut in 1926). Like Toscanini – who keeps admonishing the orchestra players “piano! piano!” during the rehearsal – Szell draws out some remarkably intimate passages from both musicians and singers in Act I. Melchior is able to sing some beautifully supported piano passages, and also to cut loose with sustained powerhouse cries of “Wälse! Wälse!“. Alexander Kipnis growls darkly as an authoritative Hunding.

Ms. Bampton’s singing sets her firmly alongside my favorite Sieglinde of all time: Johanna Meier. Bampton shares with Ms. Meier a deeply feminine sensibility as well as a feeling of great dignity, despite the hardships she has endured: married off against her will, and ill-treated by her abusive husband. Bampton’s wonderfully vivid diction, her ability to move the voice from subtle inflection to generous outpouring in the twinkling of an eye, and the overall appeal of her sound make for a winning combination in this role.

One added sonic element is the subtle use of a wind machine during the prelude; and it cunningly is heard again when the doors to Hunding’s hut blow open just before the “Winterstürme”.

I found myself being drawn deeper and deeper into this performance as Act II unfolded. Szell (above) seems, perhaps more than any other conductor I’ve experienced in the opera, to summon forth the various leitfmotifs and weave them ideally into the sonic tapestry. Thus the introduction to Act II presents the brass heralding the impending presence of Wotan and Brunnhilde whilst the strings yearningly deliver the theme of Sieglinde’s “Du bist der Lenz” (in a minor key) forecasting the theme of the entire act: the fate of the Völsung and his sister/bride; later, as Wotan and Fricka heatedly debate the issue, Szell brilliantly manages to support both sides of their argument thru orchestral underlining.

Helen Traubel’s Brunnhilde (above) rings true with rich, warm tone: a lone clapper greets her appearance – a few other audience members gingerly join in (applause during a Wagner opera is pretty much frowned upon) – and she has a fine success with “Ho-Jo-To-Ho” despite a hint of shortness at the top of the range. The sound of her voice at times reminds me, curiously, of Eleanor Steber’s.

Herbert Janssen’s Wotan is of the baritonal rather than basso persuasion: some of the roles lower notes are a bit of stretch for him. But he’s so completely at home in the role both verbally and vocally that it doesn’t matter. It’s not one of those grandiose Wagnerian voices, but has instead a dimension of the humanity that will eventually be the god’s undoing. Wotan’s monolog has some internal cuts, but Janssen sings it impressively and Traubel’s interjections are beautifully rendered.

Kerstin Thorborg’s imperial Fricka (above) is vocally opulent, and she deals from strength in her confrontation with Wotan, thoroughly dismantling his every argument as their scene progresses; a wonderfully sung Wagnerian exchange by two seasoned interpreters. Melchior and Bampton arrive at the mountain pass, fleeing from Hunding. Their scene is vividly urgent and again Szell and his orchestra continually project the dramatic situation; Melchior’s Siegmund is finally able to calm his desparate sister-bride, setting the stage for the heart of the opera: the ‘Todesverkündigung’ (the Annunciation of Death).

The Todesverkündigung is my favorite scene of WALKURE and my initial reaction on listening to the scene in this performance was of a slight letdown from all that had gone before. Szell and his orchestra did not seem to evoke the dreamlike quality needed (and there are a few bad notes among the brass players) and Melchior’s singing seemed factual and lacking in reverence to the demi-goddess who has appeared before him. I played the scene again a few hours later and found it far more impressive, especially as Traubel is so tonally secure and noble-sounding – at least until her cold façade begins to crumble in the face of Siegmund’s queries and his growing bitterness towards the deception he has been dealt. When the warrior tells Brunnhilde that he carries an invincible sword – Nothung – the Valkyrie replies: “He who bestowed it sends thee now death: for the spell he now takes from the sword!” her warning ricochets back at her when Siegmund cries: “This sword, given by a false man to a true one…!” The atmosphere is palpable, the scene as heart-breakingly beautiful as ever.

The end of the second act in this performance is somewhat undermined by the voices of Hunding, Brunnhilde and Wotan being too far off-mike to make the needed impact.

The third act opens with an exciting Ride of the Valkyries and an emotional rendering of the scene where Brunnhilde tells Sieglinde that Siegmund’s death was not in vain: she presents the unhappy widow with the pieces of the shattered Nothung and declares that Sieglinde, miraculously pregnant after only meeting her husband one day earlier, will give birth to the greatest of heroes: Siegfried. Mmes. Traubel and Bampton are very dramatically involved here, and both sing very well.

Traubel remains steady and impressive throughout the final scene with Herbert Janssen; the baritone’s voice has a steady beat to the tone – a kind of slow tremelo – that gives his singing of the opera’s heart-rending farewell of Wotan to his favorite daughter a wonderfully human dimension.

Among the Valkyries, the name Margaret Harshaw (above) stands out. She is Schwertleite here, as she was on many a Met evening over the years. In 1949 she moved on to Fricka and in 1954 she took on Sieglinde for the first time. And later in 1954 she assumed the role of Brunnhilde. It was in this last-named role that Harshaw sang in a Met WALKURE for the last time, in 1962. She took over the opera’s title-role that night in place of an ailing Birgit Nilsson. It was quite a night, as this descriptive review attests:

“Soprano Birgit Nilsson, scheduled to sing the role of Brünnhilde, had to bow out the evening before the performance. General Manager Rudolf Bing gave the role to soprano Margaret Harshaw, who was to have sung Sieglinde; into the Sieglinde role went soprano Gladys Kuchta. One of the Valkyries, mezzo Gladys Kriese, was ill with tracheitis: her part went to mezzo Ethel Greene, regularly a member of the chorus. Somehow, the opera got started on time. But in Act II, just when baritone Otto Edelmann seemed to be booming along comfortably in the role of Wotan, his voice began to fail. Edelmann withdrew at the end of Act II. He was replaced by baritone Randolph Symonette, who lasted on stage for only four minutes. 'It seemed to me like four hours,' said shaken conductor Erich Leinsdorf, later. It was apparent to Leinsdorf that Symonette 'could not get any music out of his throat.' When Symonette finally croaked out the line 'Aus meinem Angesicht bist du verbannt'('From my presence you are banished'), Leinsdorf ordered the curtain rung down.

Conductor Leinsdorf started again after a jump of ten pages in the score to cut out some of the more tortuous vocal passages, and baritone Edelmann came on again as Wotan, in brighter voice after his rest. Happily, they all made it to the final curtain.

"I felt like the pilot who decides on a crash landing," said Leinsdorf. "We made it without the plane going up in flames."

July 20, 2014
MÉLANGE @ BalaSole Dance Company

Friday July 18th, 2014 – Roberto Villanueva’s BalaSole Dance Company presenting MÉLANGE at the Ailey Citigroup Theatre. BalaSole’s evenings of concert dance afford a rare opportunity for dancers in all genres to present solo works in a professional setting, with expert lighting and sound, before a large audience. Roberto Villanueva has made a niche for his Company in the New York City dance world: I don’t know of anyone else who organizes this kind of programme, a boon for both emerging and established dance artists who need to have their work seen.

This evening’s program was one of BalaSole‘s strongest to date. Roberto likes to stress variety in his presentations, and this evening there was something for everyone. The audience – a packed house – watched in attentive silence and warmly applauded all the participating dancers. I had watched the dress rehearsal (a couple hours before curtain time) and I tried to take some pictures, but I wasn’t having much luck this time around.

BalaSole‘s programming follows a set blueprint: eight or ten artists are chosen by audition to present their solo works. They are mentored by Roberto, getting their dances stage-worthy. In the week prior to the show, ensemble pieces are created which will open and close the evening. This time around, Roberto chose wonderfully ‘danceable’ music by Franz Joseph Haydn for these group numbers, and the dancers – in vividly coloured leotards – evoked the joy of the sharing the stage with colleagues. Following a welcoming speech by Roberto, the solos began.

To an Al Kooper blues tune, Sara Braun strolls coolly onto the stage, wearing sunglasses. Removing her shades seems also to remove her self-confidence. The dance takes on a restless quality, though her poise is restored when she dons the glasses again. The dancework, entitled Amy W 27, clearly carries some meaning in the dancer’s life; the fact that we don’t know what inspired her to create the piece adds to the mystique of the character.

Tall and commanding, Steven Jeudy performs a balletic solo to the Callas recording of “O mio babbino caro” from Puccini’s GIANNI SCHICCHI. Moving with supple grace, the bare-chested dancer shows off a fine line and an impressive extension. He continues to dance after the aria ends. The title of the solo is Resplendent – a title that well-describes Mr. Jeudy himself.

In the solo Steady Tread (choreographed by Monica Hogan), Courtney Liu danced on pointe to music by the Carolina Chocolate Drops – music which somehow has a Mid-Eastern sway to it. Pausing in balanced arabesques or bringing a jogging motif into play, the pretty dancer covered the space with lively charm.

Alvaro Gonzalez danced a solo (choreographed by Tatiana Martinez) entitled En La Ausencia (In The Absence) in which the dancer, to a poignant Yann Tiersen score, is filled with loneliness. An empty embrace evokes the sense of loss; even Mr. Gonzalez’s hair seems to be expressive. The dance evolves to an agitated coda, until the dancer finally curls up on the floor in despair.

In a daffodil-yellow frock, Kendra Ross takes the stage with a striking command of sensuous musicality for Manifest Divine, danced to an Everett Saunders song. A natural mover, Ms. Ross explores her own private world for our delectation, at the end dissolving into marvelous laughter as she rushes away.

Exquisite artistry marked Misei Daimaru’s performance of her solo Stars in The Dark. Having seen Misei performing with Sunhwa Chung/KoRyo Dance Company and with Janusphere, I was very pleased to see her in a solo work. To music by Pierre and Gaspard Genard, Misei’s solo begins in a pool of light. Many dancers have used a chair in their solo works over the years, but few have made such compelling use of it as Misei; it became her virtual partner in the scheme of things. Misei’s dancing has a lovely internalized feeling, and a deeply expressive movement quality.

Roberto Lara’s personal magnetism underscored his spell-binding performance of Via Crucis (The Way of the Cross), a poignant rendering of Camille Saint-Saens’ classic Dying Swan. Dancing in toe shoes, Roberto’s black tutu contrasted with his creamy alabaster torso. This justaposition of male and female characteristics was played out without any hint of Trockadero-style camp from the muscular dancer with his dark eyes and scruffy beard. The audience responsed to this tantalizing solo with genuine enthusiasm.

In The First Ten, Katie Kilbourn appears in childish innocence. She evokes a nursery-like atmosphere while the music, by CoCo Rosie, makes us think of a music box. Sometimes sucking her thumb, the dancer moves with a doll-like feeling of naïveté. In the end, she slowly winds down while standing in a pool of light, her girlish white dress enveloping her in the virgnial purity of youth.

Schubert’s Ave Maria served as the basis for Journey, a solo by Chloe Cappo. Using her flexible physique, the dancer wove elements of pure ballet technique into her solo which used the space well and responded clearly to the music in its sense of phrasing.

In a slow progress along a lighted path across the stage, Roberto Villanueva displayed his physical control in the opening passage of Caught Up; the sound of clapping hands is later swept into ecstatic phrases for violin in a musical mixture of Steve Reich and Max Richter. Roberto pauses in a lighted circle to dance an animated section, seemingly wishing to escape. Then he continues on his way until the light fades to darkness.

BalaSole have announced their next audition for August 1st, 2014 with performances in October.

July 18, 2014
Lydia Johnson Dance: Returning to Newport

Above: Sarah Pon and Blake Hennessy-York of Lydia Johnson Dance

Sunday July 13th, 2014 – Lydia Johnson Dance will have a return engagement at the Great Friends Dance Festival in Newport, RI performing on July 18th, 19th, and 20th, 2014. Details of the festival here.

For these performances, Lydia has created a new work entitled WHAT COUNTS set to two songs by The Bad Plus: ‘Seven Minute Mind‘ (danced by a trio of women) and ‘For My Eyes Only‘ (a pas de deux). Today I stopped in at Lydia’s studio where she was putting the finishing touches on what is still a work-in-progress; in fact, she is considering adding a third section…but for now, it’s a two-movement dancework that will travel to Newport.

The music is jazz-oriented and really appealing, and Lydia has set it in her unique balletic style with a particularly pleasing stylized quality. More than anything, the ballet reminded me of Balanchine’s classic APOLLO, in part because it features a single man and three women and also because the music has a Stravinskyian tinge to it.

Sarah Pon, Laura DiOrio and Katie Martin Lohiya

Trio

Blake and Sarah: duet

Final pose

July 13, 2014
Tom Gold Dance: Images from Sofia

Above: Pacific Northwest Ballet principal Seth Orza and New York City Ballet principal ballerina Maria Kowroski performing Balanchine’s APOLLO with Tom Gold Dance on their June 2014 tour to Bulgaria; photo by Ani Collier.

Tom Gold has sent me some of Ani Collier’s photos from his Company’s recent performances at Sofia, Bulgaria:

Seth Orza in APOLLO

Maria Kowroski in Robbins’ CONCERTINO

New York City Ballet‘s Daniel Applebaum and Savannah Lowery in Twyla Tharp’s JUNK DUET

The ensemble in Tom Gold’s LA PLAGE

Pacific Northwest Ballet principal ballerina Carla Korbes with New York City Ballet‘s Andrew Scordato and Devin Alberda in LA PLAGE

Carla Kotrbes and Seth Orza in Tom Gold’s GERSHWIN PRELUDES

While in Sofia with Tom’s troupe, our beloved Maria Kowroski was the subject of a photoshoot.

In the week leading up to the tour, photographer Nir Arieli and I had stopped in at one of Tom’s rehearsals: read about it here.

June 29, 2014
Images from Jennifer Muller’s WHEW!

Above: Michael Tomlinson, Caroline Kehoe, and Shiho Tanaka of Jennifer Muller/The Works in a Carol Rosegg photo from Jennifer Muller’s jazzy dancework WHEW!

Click on each image to enlarge.

WHEW! had its world premiere performances recently at New York Live Arts on a programme shared by three choreographers: Jennifer Muller, Jacqulyn Buglisi, and Elisa Monte. Read about the performance here.

The ensemble

Seiko Fujita (foreground), Michael Tomlinson (background)

Michael Tomlinson

June 28, 2014
Boston Ballet @ Lincoln Center

Friday June 27th, 2014 – Boston Ballet have been celebrating their 50th season with performances at Lincoln Center this week. Tonight’s programme looked so tantalizing on paper, and it turned out to be a magnificent evening overall: Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, George Balanchine’s Symphony in Three Movements, Jorma Elo’s Plan to B and Jiří Kylián’s Bella Figura were all superbly danced by the Boston troupe.

When visiting companies bring Balanchine to New York, I sometimes wonder if it’s a good idea. Can’t you bring us something we don’t see all the time? But understandably, other companies are proud of their Balanchine and want to show off their abilities. Boston Ballet did a great job with The Master’s Symphony in Three Movements, even bringing their own orchestra to play the score. And Boston Ballet has strong Balanchine ties: he became Artistic Advisor to the Company in 1963, gifting them with more than seventeen of his ballets as a gesture of support.

Curtain up, and I immediately found Shelby Elsbree in the diagonal. The ballet surges forward, with delightful performances by Misa Kuranaga and Jeffrey Curio – the high-bouncing couple – and Rie Ichikawa and Bradley Schlagheck. In the ballet’s central pas de deux, Lia Curio and Lasha Khozashvili excelled. The audience, fortified by a contigent of Bostonians, gave liberal and much-deserved applause to the dancers.

Boston Ballet had brought their production of Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun to Fall for Dance in 2009 and I was mesmerized by it. Seeing the Leon Bakst backdrop and costumes again this evening provided a tangible link to the history of ballet and to that scandalous night over a century ago when Faun set Paris on its collective ear. Tonight, Altan Dugaraa embodied the exotic beauty of the Faun, his mystique and his longings, and Erica Cornejo was the Nymph, miming with stylized perfection. So grateful to have had another opportunity to see this production.

In 2006, I experienced Jorma Elo’s work for the first time at the New York City Ballet’s premiere of Slice to Sharp. Slice received the longest ovation of any new work I’ve encountered at the ballet over the years: endless curtain calls and a state of euphoria among the crowd. Boston Ballet‘s performance of Mr. Elo’s Plan to B had something of the same a dynamic pungency about it. Illuminated by a large glowing screen stage right, six dancers reveled in fantastical choreographic patterns, flinging themselves into off-kilter leaps and flying across the stage, arms whirling like windmills in a tornado. Dusty Button, Whitney Jensen, Bo Busby, Jeffrey Cirio, John Law, and Sabi Varga danced thrillingly and were deservedly cheered for their jaw-dropping virtuosity.

Alas, I am afraid Jiří Kylián’s Bella Figura was not really to my liking. Returning from the intermission, we find the dancers already onstage…warming up? Or is it a choreographed passage to start the ballet? Either way, it’s pretentious. Purgatorial and several minutes too long, the Bella Figura seemed to be more about the staging than anything else: black curtains endlessly re-arranged, a complex lighting scheme, flaming braziers bringing a taste of Hell to the stage, dancers coming and going almost randomly. The dancing was of course remarkable, and there are some very attractive passages, most especially when the topless dancers in long red skirts dance in unison. But it seemed to go on and on.

June 27, 2014
Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance @ St. Mark’s

Thursday June 26th, 2014 – Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance presenting a programme entitled Darkness, Shadows, Silence as part of the Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church. It was rather stuffy inside the church on this summer evening, but the music and the dancing soon took my mind off any such concerns.

Tonight’s first ballet is perhaps my favorite of Cherylyn’s works that I have experienced to date: TRYPTYCH is set to music by Francois Couperin and danced in bare feet. It opens with Claire Westby, invoking the dance from the mezzanine above. The four couples enter and commence a series of ensemble dances meshed with fleeting solo, duet or trio passages, the women wearing soft grey frocks and the men clad in simple dark costumes. Some of the phrases for the four women draw to mind the sisterly ensembles of Isadora Duncan. TRYPTYCH is spiritual though not heavy-handed: ritualistic yet human.

I very much enjoyed the expressive interaction between Cherylyn’s beautiful dancers in this work: Giorgia Bovo, Selina Chau, Giovanna Gamna and Christine Luciano seemed deeply immersed in the music, and their partners – Michael D Gonzalez, Elliot Hammans, Travis Magee and Adrian Silver – came and went with a sense of quiet urgency. The ballet seems to draw to a lovely closing, but there is a pendant still to come.

Scott Killian’s score for the final movement of TRYPTYCH alludes to Couperin yet is distinctly contemporary. An excellent duet for two men – Travis Magee and Elliot Hammans – gives way to another duet danced by Selina Chau (now on pointe) and Adrian Silver. The work ends with Ms. Westby in a benedictive phrase. This appended final movement at first seems somewhat unrelated to what’s gone on before, but Ms. Lavagnino and her dancers draw it convincingly full-circle in the end.

Two movements of Cherylyn Lavagnino’s Schubert ballet TREIZE EN JEU were presented: this is a ballet for large ensemble wherein the dancers from TRYPTYCH are joined by Kristen Stevens, Eliza Sherlock-Lewis, Lila Simmons, and Justin Faircloth. Set to Schubert’s E-flat major trio, opus 929, the work displays the choreographer’s sense of structure, with a particularly memorable ‘pacing’ motif at the opening of the second movement as two phalanxes of dancers approach from opposite sides of the stage. Once again the individual personalities of the dancers played a vital element in the success of the piece. My only reservation was that the women’s costumes seemed too sporty and contemporary for the musical atmosphere: I would have addded long, gossamer black skirts.

Back in April, I visited Cherylyn’s studio where the works presented this evening were in rehearsal. And in the ensuing weeks I have read Kim Thúy’s novel, RU, from which Cherylyn’s newest work draws its inspiration. RU is a contemporary-style ballet set to a commissioned score by Scott Killian.

The novel by Kim Thúy, which describes a young woman’s life as a post-Vietnam War political refugee, revolves around cultural dislocation and the struggle for identity. T’ai Chi’s passive resistance serves as gestural influence for the choreographer, and Christopher Metzger’s costumes for the women are reminiscent of the traditional Vietnamese áo dài dress: they are clad in white, with red accents indicating the bloodshed of war.

Ms. Thúy’s novel is more like a book of poetry: each page contains only a few sentences (or, at most, a few paragraphs) describing in no specific order the details of escape from Asia to Canada, the cultural shock of this transplantation, and the writer’s emeging personality as a wife and mother. The choreography moves the female ensemble across a darkening landscape, suggesting their furtive escape from war and the formation of new bonds as their former lives are left behind. The men, bare-chested, can seem threatening or protective by turns.

In RU, Cherylyn Lavagnino and Scott Killian have summoned up the atmosphere of the novelist’s poetic vignettes yet the ballet also takes a wider view of displaced peoples, their exposure to abuse and treachery, and their assimilation into new cultures. I look forward to seeing this piece again in the future.

June 26, 2014
Beethoven Piano Concertos @ NY Phil III

Wednesday June 25th, 2014 – The New York Philharmonic presenting the final programme of their 2013-2014 subscription season at Avery Fisher Hall; over the past two weeks, the orchestra have offered the first four Beethven piano concertos with Alan Gilbert on the podium and Yefim Bronfman at the Steinway. Tonight Mr. Bronfman played the 5th (‘Emperor’) concerto as the concert’s finale; earlier in the evening, he was joined for the Triple Concerto by the Philharmonic’s soon-to-retire concertmaster Glenn Dicterow, and the principal cellist Carter Brey join Mr. Bronfman. This same programme will be repeated on June 26th, 27th, and 28th, the final evening marking Glenn Dicterow’s farewell performance with the Philharmonic.

The Triple Concerto (1804) opens with a traditional Allegro in which the solo voices are introduced one by one: the cello, then the violin, and finally the piano. In the Largo which follows (and is rather short), the concerto finds its heart with a melody, introduced by the cello, which displays the expressive richness that characterize the greatest passages of Beethoven’s works. Without pause, the final Rondo alla Polacca commences; again the insistently repeated phrases of the cello are prominent. This rondo features joyful themes seemingly inspired by Polish folk music, with lively shifts from major to minor.

The performance, though thoroughly enjoyable, somehow never really developed a rapport between the three solo players, mainly due to the fact that Mr. Bronfman, of necessity, had his back to his string-playing collegues. Mssers. Dicterow and Brey were able to communicate directly with one another, whilst Mr. Bronfman was left in his own (beautiful) world.

Following the intermission, Yefim Bronfman’s playing of the ‘Emperor’ concerto this evening was a superb finale to this NY Philharmonic Beethoven Concerto Festival. This majestic work was given a vibrant performance by the pianist and the artists of the Philharmonic, all wonderfully woven together by Maestro Gilbert’s baton.

By this Saturday, Mr. Bronfman will have played on thirteen evenings over a three week period: an exhausting schedule, yet the pianist’s playing seemed awesomely fresh and vital tonight, with his uncanny mastery of dymanics always giving a shimmer to the sound. For all his technical brilliance, Bronfman’s playing also has a noble, heartfelt quality that makes his playing so deeply satisfying. The waves of applause that have engulfed him at each of these concerts have been very moving to experience. And it’s to our good fortune that he will be back at Avery Fisher Hall in late October 2014 playing the Bartok 3rd with Alan Gilbert on the podium. The dates are already on my calendar.

June 25, 2014
A Novel: ASTONISH ME by Maggie Shipstead

Maggie Shipstead’s ballet-based novel ASTONISH ME draws its title from something Serge Diaghilev reportedly used to say to his dancers: “”Etonnez-moi!” The novel will make a good Summer read for balletomanes who will likely enjoy getting to know book’s characters who are based (loosely or otherwise) on Gelsey Kirkland, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, George Balanchine and Suzanne Farrell, among others.

In the novel, a young American ballerina named Joan is rather mysteriously tapped to assist the great Russian dancer Arslan Rusakov in defecting to the West in 1975. A romance between the two follows, but Arslan eventually ends up with Ludmilla, his Russian lover who has also defected. Joan gives up her dancing career and settles into a solid but conventional marriage. But as her son Harry grows up, he displays a remarkable natural affinity for ballet and he plunges headlong into that world, meeting and being mentored by his idol, Arslan Rusakov.

The novel is at its most convincing when dealing with the world of ballet and with the devotion, disappointments, amours, addictions and quirks of the various dancers who people the story. Chapters dealing with Joan’s life away from ballet are a bit tedious, but as Harry’s career seems poised to take off, she is drawn back into the center of things. What might be considered the ‘big revelation’ of the story will in fact be rather obvious to alert readers way before it occurs to the characters involved.

One interesting aspect of the story is that the ‘Balanchine’ character, here called “Mr. K”, succumbs to AIDS.

The ending of the novel is somewhat under-mined by the convention of having the various interactions of the characters and the inter-twinings of their lives danced out in a ballet; I kept wishing that Shipstead could have found a more vivid way of drawing the threads of the story together, providing us with a less predictable denouement.

Despite some reservations, the book is very well-written and definitely worth checking out.

June 24, 2014
Dress Rehearsal of SWAN LAKE @ ABT

Monday June 23, 2014 – I had a wonderful time at the dress rehearsal of ABT’s SWAN LAKE this afternoon, as the guest of my friend Monica Wellington. We had a very nice view of both the stage and the orchestra from a Grand Tier box.

I’ve been to many opera dress rehearsals at The Met over the years, but this was my first time for a ballet. The dancers did not always dance full-out – just as the singers in an opera sometimes mark at a dress rehearsal. Partial costuming, lack of full stage make-up, headwear worn or not…all this made for a very ‘personal’ experience (one girl in the corps wore her eyeglasses throughout).

James Whiteside was an excellent Prince Siegfried in Act I, and then we had a different pair of principals in each of the following acts: the exquisite Hee Seo dancing with Roberto Bolle in the first lakeside scene, then the lush and imperial Veronika Part with Cory Stearns in the Black Swan act, and finally Paloma Herrera (my lovely Giselle from last week) with Mr. Whiteside in the final act. Misty Copeland, Isabella Boylston, and Luis Ribagorda danced the pas de trois, and the soon-to-depart Jared Matthews danced Rothbart’s set-piece in the Black Swan act.

At the end of the ballet, it was decided to rehearse part of the Maypole dance from Act I again, so we had the delightful experience of watching the girls, costumed as white swans, folk-dancing.

The orchestra brought a special glow to the score, playing at performance-level all afternoon. I was especially impressed – and moved – by the woodwinds in the final act: the two oboists were ideally matched in phrasing, harmony and incredible breath-control, as were the bassoonists. Later the melody passes to clarinet, then flute, then piccolo. I very much enjoyed watching the musicians – all dressed in summer casuals – and I quietly applauded their artistry throughout the ballet.

At the end, we stayed on as all the dancers – many of them now in street clothes – returned to the stage for notes. Cory Stearns practiced some very elegant multiple pirouettes stage left.

June 23, 2014