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A Stirring Performance By The Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 23 February 2023 15:01; Written by Jack Angstreich

Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine, photo by Chris Lee

At Carnegie Hall on the evening of Wednesday, February 15th, I had the pleasure of attending a fine concert presented by the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine under the distinguished direction of Principal Conductor, Theodore Kuchar.

After a brief introduction by the eminent actor Liev Schreiber, the program began favorably with an expert account of Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych’s compelling Chamber Symphony No. 3 for Flute and Strings, featuring Michailo Sosnovsky as soloist. The impressive virtuoso Stanislav Khristenko then joined the musicians for an accomplished rendition of the Piano Concerto No. 1 of Johannes Brahms. The stirring, opening Maestoso—which is dramatic and Romantic with both meditative and impassioned passages—drew applause. The lyrical Adagio that follows—the most beautiful of the movements—at times recalls the slow movements from the mature piano concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as well as echoing Felix Mendelssohn. The lively, affirmativefinaleis the movement that most strongly manifests the influence of Ludwig van Beethoven and features a remarkable fugue which is maybe the pinnacle of the work. An enthusiastic ovation elicited a dazzling encore from the pianist: Vladimir Horowitz’s Variations on a Theme from Bizet's Carmen.

The second half of the event was even more memorable, consisting in a confident reading of Antonín Dvořák’s marvelous “New World” Symphony. The exciting first movement is expansive, tuneful and captivating while the ensuing Largo—which received applause—is soulful, evocative and serene, with a pastoral middle section. The Scherzo is more suspenseful and propulsive, with more leisurely, cheerful passages, and thefinaletoo is exhilarating with some quieter moments. An appreciative ovation was rewarded with another delightful encore: Ukrainian composer Anatoliy Kos-Anatolsky’s "Chasing the Wind" from The Jay's Wing.

February '23 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 22 February 2023 10:41; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week

Emily

(Bleecker Street)

In her writing and directing debut, the superb Australian actress Frances O’Connor tackles a not undemanding subject—a biopic of English writer Emily Brontë, who wrote her classic novel Wuthering Heights in 1847 before dying the following year at age 30—with passion and intelligence, if not always a discerning artist’s eye.

She invents a relationship out of whole cloth that gives Emily the writerly passion needed for her poetic demise, but it turns the film into a high-gloss melodrama. Still, O’Connor does some impressive work here, and Emily is anchored by a gripping and multi-faceted portrayal by Emma Mackay, who serves the material brilliantly.

Amy’s F It List

(Indie Rights)

In this hamfisted comedy, director/cowriter Mark S. Allen’s single heroine with a fatal brain tumor decides to live out her final days getting revenge on people who have wronged her—along with having one-night stands, because, of course she does.

It’s a promising if unoriginal premise that Allen does little with: there’s nary a laugh or anything pointed in what unfolds, as Amy dumps food on a male junk-food drive-thru employee or damages the huge pickup of a male driver who cuts her off. As Amy, Alyson Gorske is a charming and capable comic performer who deserves better.

Devil’s Peak

(Screen Media)

Billy Bob Thornton hams it up as a crime boss in rural Appalachia, where opoids probably take away more victims than do his own minions—or himself, when he’s in the mood. Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of originality in Ben Young’s minor crime drama/romance.

Then there’s Hopper Penn (son of Sean Penn and Robin Wright, who shines in a thankless role as Thornton’s ex and Penn’s mom), who morosely walks through the film as his character falls for a forbidden gal played by the winning Katelyn Nacon.

Marlowe

(Open Road Films)

Despite its undeniable visual sheen, Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Benjamin Black’s novel The Black-Eyed Blonde—following Raymond Chandler’s creation, private detective Philip Marlowe at the center of a missing-person investigation in 1930s Los Angeles—is pretty lackluster, beginning with the surprisingly flat turn by Liam Neeson as Marlowe.

There’s nicely turned support by Diane Kruger as the femme fatale as well as Jessica Lange as her mother, but Jordan and Neeson’s entry into the Marlowe canon is glossy but awfully lightweight.

The Other Fellow

(Mission Brief)

How do people who share the same name as a famous person, real or imagined, handle it? In the case of James Bond, Ian Fleming’s immortal agent 007, director Matthew Bauer interviews several namesakes who share stories of humor, regret and even the dangers they’ve faced when others (notably, policemen) find out.

Bauer soon, however, narrows his focus to an American birdwatcher who gave Fleming his hero’s name as well as Gunnar Schäfer, who changed his name to James Bond to make his life more exciting—which it may well be, especially after he gets to star in a documentary about James Bond!

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Rolling Stones—Grrr Live!

(Mercury)

Part of the Stones’ 2012-13 50th anniversary tour, this December 2012 show in Newark, New Jersey—of all places—finds the band putting on a terrific 2-hour, 20-minute performance highlighting their most fertile period, from the opening “Get Off of My Cloud” to the closing “Satisfaction”; there’s even a runthrough of “Midnight Rambler” with old friend Mick Taylor.

Best of all are a choir-enhanced “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and a turbo-charged “Gimme Shelter,” which is relegated to the “extras” section. The video and audio—which includes surround-sound and Dolby Atmos mixes—are spectacular; other extra songs are “Respectable” with guest John Mayer and “Around and Around.” The concert is also on two audio CDs.

Eine Winterreise

(Naxos)

This messy hybrid of music-theater and recital from creator-director Christof Loy presents a rather unimaginative dramatization of the tragically short life of composer Franz Schubert, set to his own extraordinary songs and chamber music.

Ageless Anne Sofie von Otter sings Schubert’s lieder elegantly while marvelous pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout accompanies her and plays excerpts from Schubert’s graceful piano pieces—but Loy’s vision doesn’t cohere in any exciting or memorable way. There’s excellent hi-def video and audio; too bad there are no contextualizing extras.

Venus & Adonis/Dido & Aeneas

(Opus Arte)

Two of the earliest operas by English composers—John Blow’s Venus & Adonis (1683) and Henry Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas (1689)—are paired in this austere and poignant staging by William Relton in the intimate confines of Sweden’s Confidenten Theatre.

The same singers portray all four leads: Bernt Ola Volungholen is in fine form as Adonis and Aeneas, but it’s Swedish soprano Ida Ränzlöv’s showcase as Venus and Dido, singing beautifully throughout, especially in her heartrending rendition of Purcell’s greatest aria, “When I Am Laid in Earth.” There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.

DVD Releases of the Week

Adieu Paris

(Distrib Films US)

Cowriter-director Édouard Baer’s uneven comedy brings together several veterans of French cinema—including Pierre Arditti, Gérard Depardieu, Bernard Le Coq, Daniel Prévost and Belgian Benoît Poelvoorde—for a frantic and funny if overbearing display of nastiness as a group of aging “Kings of Paris” get together at their usual haunt for their annual “roast” that is crashed by a foreign (Belgian) interloper.

It’s silly and repetitive but the accomplished ensemble propels the crude jokes and insults through sheer force of habit.

A Family for 1640 Days

(Distrib Films US)

As Anna, a mother who wants the best for her adopted young son Simon when his real father returns to get him back, Mélanie Thierry gives a fierce and intensely moving performance in Fabien Gorgeart’s raw drama that hearteningly provides a balanced account of both sides in the battle for custody of Simon—the family he’s known his whole young life or the absent biological father who has the law on his side.

Although Thierry is the film’s unforgettable heart, Lyes Salem as her husband Driss, Félix Moati as Simon’s father Eddy and Gabriel Pavie as Simon give stellar support in an emotional but cathartic journey worth taking.

CD Releases of the Week

Lili/Nadia Boulanger—Les heures claires

(Harmonia Mundi)

French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger—an important teacher to countless prominent European and American composers—was also a composer, although her more talented sister, Lili Boulanger, was an accomplished composer whose death at age 24 in 1918 is one of the great tragedies in music history. (Nadia died at age 92 in 1979.)

This marvelous three-disc set collects all of the mélodies (songs) composed by both women: since Lili’s career was so suddenly cut short, her songs make up only one disc, with Nadia’s encompassing the other two. Lili’s songs are more memorably intimate, but mezzo Lucile Richardot and pianist Anne de Fornel give them all impassioned readings. Also included are some of the sisters’ solo piano and chamber music to complement the vocal works, which Fornel and other musicians also dispatch pleasingly.

Sandrine Piau—Voyage Intime

(Alpha Classics)

Two Lili Boulanger songs also make a brief appearance on French soprano Sandrine Piau’s latest recital disc, in which she and her exceptional French piano partner David Kadouch explore the title’s “intimate journeys” through a carefully curated group of songs that start and end with Franz Liszt.

In between, Piau and Kadouch visit vocal works by Hugo Wolf, Clara Schumann, Franz Schubert, Henri Duparc, and Claude Debussy, all of which are performed sensitively and intelligently. As a nice bonus, piano pieces by Clara and Lili are also programmed.

Daniele Rustioni Makes Carnegie Hall Debut

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:59; Written by Jack Angstreich

Daniele Rustioni conducts MET Orchestra. Photo by Chris Lee.

At Carnegie Hall on the evening of Saturday, February 11th, I was inordinately fortunate to attend a superb concert presented by the MET Orchestra under the exceptional direction of Daniele Rustioni in his debut at this venue.

The program opened magnificently with a sterling account of Béla Bartók’s astonishing Concerto for Orchestra. The Introduzione begins ominously and eerily with unsettling dissonances; the music then takes on an impassioned if disquieting urgency, although with more placid—even lyrical—interludes before ending abruptly and excitingly. The sprightlier Giuoco delle coppie that follows is ludic and humorous if not without enigmatic moments and concludes quietly while the ensuing Elegia is inward, mysterious and somber but with intense passages and also closes softly. The enthralling Intermezzo is magical and stirring if overtly comic and satirical and the powerful Finale is propulsive, quirky and cheerful and ultimately thrilling.

For the beginning of the remarkable second half of the event, the impressive bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green joined the musicians for a compelling performance of Modest Mussorgsky’s haunting, too seldom heard Songs and Dances of Death, brilliantly orchestrated by Dmitri Shostakovich. The evening’s pinnacle, however, was a masterly version of Igor Stravinsky’s extraordinary Suite from The Firebird (1919 version). The Introduction and Dance of the Firebird is ingenious and as bewitching as the subsequent Rondo: The Princesses’ Khorovod is evocative. The Infernal Dance of King Kashchei is exhilarating, and is succeeded by the Berceuse which is the most glorious part of the score—and also the unforgettable soundtrack for Lewis Klahr’s amazing film, Altair—while the Finale builds to an ecstatic close. The artists were enthusiastically applauded.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Anna Ziegler’s “The Wanderers” with Katie Holmes

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 21 February 2023 14:23; Written by Kevin Filipski

The Wanderers

Written by Anna Ziegler

Directed by Barry Edelstein

Performances through April 2, 2023

Laura Pels Theatre, 111 West 46th Street, New York, NY

roundabouttheatre.org

Katie Holmes in The Wanderers (photo: Joan Marcus)

Anna Ziegler’s play, The Wanderers, is a schematic but intelligently written exploration of two generations of a Jewish family—one very religious, the other decidedly not—with a lightness of touch that doesn’t detract from the thoughtful and piercingly humane drama at its center.

In 2017, Abe, a successful writer, lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with his wife Sophie and their (smartly unseen) children. Abe and Sophie have known each other since they were kids, and their marriage has hit a rough patch, exacerbated by Sophie not be able to write as she used to as Abe’s books continue to be successful. To that end, Julia Cheever, a famous actress whom Abe has been infatuated with for years, attends a reading of his and begins an unlikely email correspondence with him, also threatening to unbalance the precarious state of Abe and Sophie’s relationship.

In 1973, also in Williamsburg, Abe’s parents, Schmuli and Esther, get married and start a family. Although both come from Hasidic families, Schmuli is perturbed by Esther’s ever greater attempts to break free of that stifling environment. After Abe is born, Esther’s behavior—which includes listening to FM radio and checking books out of the library—becomes too much for Schmuli’s ultra-conservative father, so she is banned from seeing her daughters, who have been taken from her. She scoops up the baby and leaves.

Ziegler alternates, in a fleet 105 minutes, between the two couples and their marital and personal difficulties; Abe’s ongoing electronic flirtation with Julia makes a tentative menage a trois of the trio of storylines. Writer Philip Roth is not only mentioned in the dialogue—Sophie references his novel Sabbath’s Theater in her opening monologue and Julia stars in a movie adaptation of another Roth novel, Everyman, which unsurprisingly is a bomb with audiences and critics (but not with Abe, who loves everything she’s in)—but his spirit hovers over this play about assimilation and identity, about Abe’s suppressed guilt about broken families, both his parents and now, possibly, his own. And the play is broken up by eight rather Rothian chapter titles (e.g., “Chapter Five (or, Fathers and Sons).”

But Ziegler is too smart a writer to make The Wanderers a mere Roth homage. The women Esther, Sophie and Julia are dignified and vivid presences. Even Sophie’s unseen mother Rivka—who, like Esther, broke away from the orthodox community after meeting a Black man at the Met Museum and settling down with him in Albany, where Sophie grew up—is complexly realized.

Although the relationships and interactions are occasionally contrived in Barry Edelstein’s otherwise zesty staging—which benefits by Marion Williams’ messily book-laden set and Kenneth Posner’s apt lighting—the entire cast finds the truth in Ziegler’s snappy, expressive dialogue. As Sophie, Sarah Cooper (best-known for her hilarious Trump “karaoke” viral clips) has an intelligent gleam in her eye and a confident way about her that makes one look forward to more stage appearances.

Although Julia may be merely an extension of Katie Holmes herself, Holmes plays the actress with far more charm than she showed in her previous New York stage outings. Lucy Freyer makes Esther quite formidable in the play’s most sympathetic and touching portrayal. And both men—Eddie Kaye Thomas as Abe and Dave Klasko as Schmuli—make equally indelible impressions working their way through their characters’ patriarchal beliefs that are the root cause of the imploding relationships we see onstage.

Reviews

A Stirring Performance By The Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine

February '23 Digital Week IV

Daniele Rustioni Makes Carnegie Hall Debut

Off-Broadway Play Review—Anna Ziegler’s “The Wanderers” with Katie Holmes

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