Oberon's Glade

Tag: Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra

  • Shaham|Langrée @ Mostly Mozart

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    Above: Violinist Gil Shaham

    ~ Author: Scoresby

    Friday August 18th, 2017 – After a month of recovering from an illness, I was happy to be able hear live music performed by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in David Geffen Hall led by its music director Louis Langrée with guest violinist Gil Shaham. A month is the longest I’ve gone without hearing live music in years, so it felt like the ultimate psychological panacea to attend. While I have regularly attended the chamber music performances, A Little Night Music, and contemporary music concerts, I hadn’t heard the Festival Orchestra since 2014.  I was glad to be able to attend the penultimate Festival Orchestra concert of the season.

    Louis-Langrée

    Above: Louis Langrée 

    The first piece on the program was the bubbly Prokofiev Symphony No. 1 in D major (“Classical”). The only other time I have heard this piece played live was, coincidentally, also the last time I heard the Festival Orchestra. This evening Mr. Langrée led a taut, lean performance. During the dance-like opening movement, the strings sounded bouncy and light. The low woodwinds provided a warm sheen, even in the most ominous undercurrents of the piece. Mr. Langrée’s sense of balance allowed the bassoon’s counterpoint to easily pop. While certainly an energetic account, none of the structural detailing was missed.

    During the Larghetto, the bassoons and clarinets took the spotlight, providing entertainment combined with artistry. For those who haven’t been to Mostly Mozart before, the stage of David Geffen is modified to allow riser seating in the back of the orchestra by moving up the stage to what would be the first few rows of the hall. This pushes the orchestra significantly closer to audience and creates a much more intimate environment.

    Mr. Langrée takes full advantage of this intimacy by using far quieter dynamics than could ever be used during the normal season’s setup – it feels as if the orchestra is thrust into the audience. The orchestral detailing in the second movement was superb through even the quietest of moments. While this makes the music sound more nuanced and detailed, it feels as if the noises from the crowd are too. Throughout the performance I heard many more pings of hearing aids, coughs, and wrappers of food than I hear during the regular season. However, I am happy to take that trade-off if it makes the music-making substantially more interesting as it did here. In the third and fourth movements, the orchestra kept its momentum and finished to a crowd that roared, obviously excited over the energy of the musicians.

    The second piece on the program was Mozart Symphony No. 25 G minor, K. 183 (one of few Mozart symphonies in the minor key). I’ve never been the biggest fan of the piece, but it was still a pleasure to hear it live in such an intimate space. While at times I felt the orchestra sounded a little muddy through the first movement, every time there was a canonic section Mr. Langrée confidently led transparent and thoughtful introductions for each instrument.

    These structured sections sounded just as buoyant as the Prokofiev. While a welcome change in dynamics, some of the rhythms and accents in the Andante felt over-accentuated to my ear.  Nonetheless, one could hear every instrument clearly singing its line. The trio of the third movement brought another warm passage with the bright woodwinds followed by an incisive final movement.

    After the intermission, the crowd seemed to be buzzing to hear the final piece on the program: the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major played by violinist Gil Shaham. I’ve never been a fan of this piece, but here it was played in a refreshing way that would make want to listen again. Mr. Shaham took an understated approach to the first movement (at least as much as is possible for a virtuosic warhorse), languishing in the phrasing of lines.

    Again, because of the setup of the lean orchestra and intimacy of the venue, there was no need to play loud. Thus he was able to bring a supple legato phrasing that never sounded harsh. After a measured performance of the cadenza by Mr. Shaham, the principal flautist Jasmine Choi gave one of the clearest and mellowest solos I’ve heard for that section of the piece. Mr. Shaham seemed more effective in the second movement, managing to illicit a rounder, ghostly tone during the introduction. The orchestra responded, with the clarinet’s extensive accompaniment matching the misty mood.

    Throughout the piece Mr. Shaham seemed to play for the musicians rather than for the audience – the whole experience seemed have more of a chamber music feel than that of a virtuosic concerto. The orchestral musicians and Mr. Langrée were smiling from start to finish and it was a joy to watch them exchange phrases with Mr. Shaham. While perhaps not the most technical or dazzling performance of this piece, witnessing and feeling that rare warmth between the artists is something that can only be experienced in a live performance.

    During the final movement, Mr. Shaham dispatched the technical sections with ease and the crowd gave him a roaring ovation. He played as an encore the third movement of the third E-major Bach Partita. While charming, to me the highlight of the concert was witnessing intimate collaborative music-making that is rare to see in an orchestra.

    ~ Scoresby

  • The Illuminated Heart @ Mostly Mozart

    1980x1012_MMFO-11802_copyright Jennifer Taylor

    Above: Maestro Louis Langrée, surrounded by members of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra; photo © Jennifer Taylor

    Tuesday July 26th, 2016 – Opera director and video artist Netia Jones has created The Illuminated Heart, a program of arias and ensembles from Mozart’s operas performed live in a multi-media installation with video projections: this was the opening offering of the 2016 Mostly Mozart Festival. The Festival’s well-loved music director, Louis Langrée, presided over the 90-minute evening (presented without intermission) marking the 50th anniversary of Mostly Mozart.

    The Mostly Mozart musicians were in the pit and the Geffen Hall stage was taken up by a large, white, simple room. Imaginative projections – including fanciful flights of birds during Papageno’s aria – filled the space, and English translations of the pieces being sung moved unobtrusively across the rear wall. As Maestro Langrée led a lively NOZZE DI FIGARO overture, “Susanna” appeared, removing dust-covers from stage furnishings and polishing up. Fortuntely, no attempt was made to turn the random operatic selections into a narrative, as the Met did so tediously with THE ENCHANTED ISLAND. Each solo, duet, or ensemble was done as a free-standing set piece, the singers costumed in a ‘timeless’ style.

    Following the overture, things got off to a rather raw start: the voices seemed very harsh (I almost thought they were being miked) and there was a feeling of relentlessness to the singing, with little elegance or refinement to be heard. Nadine Sierra, singing Susanna to Peter Mattei’s Almaviva in the Act I NOZZE duet, wore a dress that made her look pregnant. Christopher Maltman, in Papageno’s Act I aria, seemed to be auditioning for Wotan: more than ample sound, to be sure, but lacking in charm. The Act I finale of COSI FAN TUTTE doesn’t play well out of context. 

    Ms. Sierra sang the ‘rarest’ work of the evening: “Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben” from ZAIDE. She has the right feeling for the music, and did some attractive soft singing, but to me she often seems to hover just a bit sharp of the pitch.

    Ana Maria Martinez’s performance of “Mi tradi” from DON GIOVANNI signaled the start of a progression of four arias that formed the vocal centerpiece of the evening. Ms. Martinez’s voice has a nice weight for this music, and she was able to carry off the more florid passages with assurance whilst bringing dramatic urgency to her singing.

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    New to me was the distinctive voice of Marianne Crebassa (above); this comely French-born mezzo-soprano gave a performance of “Parto, parto” from LA CLEMENZA DI TITO that could stand comfortably beside such wonderful versions of this aria as those of Teresa Berganza, Tatiana Troyanos, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Elina Garanca. Ms. Crebassa’s timbre is unique, with a nice duskiness in the lower range, and she sailed thru the coloratura passages with deft surety. Matching the mezzo in expression and poised musical embroidery was the excellent clarinetist Jon Manasse.

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    Simply superb: Peter Mattei (above) sang Count Almaviva’s “Hai gia vinto la causa…” from NOZZE with plush, commanding sound and vivid dramatic inflections, handling the speedy passage-work as the aria rushes to its close with aplomb. A masterful performance!

    MatthewPolenzani

    Matthew Polenzani (above) gave the evening’s most moving singing with his heartfelt “Dalla sua pace” from DON GIOVANNI. Kneeling at the back of the performing space, Polenzani sang with great tenderness and refinement; his touching command of piano nuances, and his wonderfully sincere rendering of the words made for a spell-binding performance. His Idomeneo at The Met cannot get here soon enough. Bravo, bravo, bravo…

    Ms. Martinez and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack sounded fine in the COSI trio, “Soave sia il vento”, but it was Mr. Mattei’s singing as Don Alfonso that dominated: so rich, firm, and lovingly phrased. An ensemble from CLEMENZA – nicely sung by Christine Goerke, Mlles. Sierra and Crebassa, and Mr. Polenzani – seemed a bit aimless out of context. Moving immediately into Elettra’s aria might have made things seem more cohesive, but instead Ms. Goerke remained onstage, pondering, whilst Mr. Maltman popped out – wine bottle in hand – to sing Don Giovanni’s vigorous “Finch’an del vino”. 

    Ms. Goerke then came forward for Elettra’s “O smania, O furie!” Her vivid declamation was spot on, and   she brilliantly conveyed the character’s dementia in “‘Oreste, D’Ajace”. But the voice tightens as she goes higher up, and so the effect of this mad scene’s climax was somewhat compromised.

    Everyone joined in for the NOZZE DI FIGARO finale,including soprano Kiera Duffy, who had had no real opportunity to shine vocally in the course of the evening.

    Overall, The Illuminated Heart worked quite well. I would have chosen some slightly different pieces, and maybe slightly different singers, and would have included a basso to sing one of Sarastro’s arias. The 90-minute time-span, without intermission, was ideal. Mr. Maestro Langrée’s propulsive pacing and the swift staging transformations from one number to the next made the concert fly by.