A strong season of orchestral music in New York continued impressively at Carnegie Hall on the evening of Friday, April 20th, with the appearance of the fine musicians of the Grand Rapids Symphony under the admirable direction of Marcelo Lehninger.

 

The program began brilliantly with a stirring account of the invariably thrilling and immensely popular Bolero of Maurice Ravel. The extraordinary Brazilian soloist Nelson Freire then took the stage for an engaging performance of a work he has recently championed, the sparkling and eclectic, single-movement piano concerto Momoprecoce of Heitor Villa-Lobos—an example of the unfamiliar repertory that made this event especially memorable.

 

The second half of the evening was at least equally remarkable, with another rewarding presentation of an underrated piano concerto played by Freire, Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Manuel de Falla, which opens with the evocative and impressionistic “En el Generalife”, followed by the more dramatic, ensuing movements, “Danza lejana” and “En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba”. After an enthusiastic ovation, the soloist delighted the audience with an encore: the charming “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” from the Children’s Corner Suite of Claude Debussy.

 

The concert concluded stunningly with another rare opus: the powerful, exotic and enthralling Chôros No. 10, “Rasga o Coração”, of Villa-Lobos, which featured the superb Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus led by Pearl Shangkuan. Ardent applause was reciprocated by another encore, this time including the entire ensemble: the inexpressibly beautiful and seldom heard choral version of Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane, set to a text by Robert de Montesquiou, a figure that inspired such artists as Marcel Proust, J. K. Huysmans, and James Whistler. I hope these musicians return to New York before long, bringing more splendid discoveries.

King Lear should drain spectators as much as it drains the life out of its eponymous protagonist, who dies with his beloved Cordelia in his arms, his prideful transgressions also resulting in the deaths of his other two daughters, a son-in-law, and the complete destruction of his kingdom. However, of the many times I’ve seen Lear, the end rarely arrives with more than a shrug; that continues with Gregory Doran’s workmanlike Royal Shakespeare Company production starring Antony Sher at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

 

Two years ago at BAM, Doran and Sher’s collaborative Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 had the same strengths and weaknesses, but Sher’s tendency toward overripeness—superb diction but odd scansion and excessive zeal—worked better with Falstaff than Lear, which needs a more judicious balancing act between the role’s subtle humor and the tragic downward spiral from arrogance to madness to brief joy to final, fatal grief.

 

Doran’s lone innovation—if it can be called that—is an oversized glass box that Lear first appears in, carried in by his servants, as he declaims from on high and apart from his subjects about his “darker purpose.” The box returns for the torturing of Gloucester, which enables the “vile jelly” of his eyes being torn out of his skull to shoot all over the glass, where it looks like the gory contents of many more eyes than his mere two.

 

Doran’s otherwise measured pace has the desultory effect of watching a monochromatic melodrama, not Shakespeare’s taut tragedy. Niki Turner’s drab sets and costumes—the latter mainly all white or all black—might be an unintended comment on the director’s peculiar lack of shading. Botched is the climactic scene, as a wheeled-out Lear sits holding the dead Cordelia: this kills the effect of an incensed father howling over his daughter’s demise, his own frailty momentarily usurped by his overwhelming sadness. And Sher speaks Lear’s five heartbreaking “nevers” without ever cutting straight to the heart, sounding like an actor’s recitation exercise rather than the furious cries of a mortally grief-stricken man.

 

The large supporting cast is highlighted by Antony Byrne’s keenly observed Kent, Oliver Johnstone’s cogent and sympathetic Edgar/Poor Tom and Graham Turner’s amusingly stoic Fool. Conversely, none of the actresses playing Lear’s daughters makes much of an impression, while Paapa Essiedu—who plays Edgar’s villainous illegitimate brother Edmund—has been called a 28-year-old acting wunderkind, but his performance lacks sufficient variety, with an unfortunate singsong voice to boot. 

 

Ultimately, this is another production of King Lear that fails to scale the summit of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy.

 

(Criterion)

Armenian director Sergei Parajanov’s 1969 masterpiece—a riotous blend of color, music, sound, poetry and religious imagery—is an impressionistic biography of the 18th century Armenian troubadour Sayat-Nova; but even if the mainly abstract tableaux make his film difficult to “get,” the director’s stunning visual and aural artistry is always in evidence.

 

 

 

Criterion’s restored hi-def transfer has given this hard-to-see classic its best “look” on video, while several extras give context to Parajanov’s singular cinema: critic Tony Rayns’ commentary; video essay on the film's symbols and references; scholar James Steffen interview; Sergei Parajanov: The Rebel, a 2003 documentary; The Life of Sayat-Nova, a 1977 documentary; and a 1969 documentary, The Color of Armenian Land.

 

The Royal Funeral of Louis XIV/Les Funérailles Royales de Louis XIV 

(Harmonia Mundi)

This dazzling recreation of the musical pageant that followed the 1715 death of the French monarch is set in the gorgeous chapel at the palace of Versailles, where the Sun King lived and reigned, and features a procession of funereal music by many French court composers.

 

 

 

The setting is truly spectacular, the music is equally magnificent, and the performances by the ensemble Pygmalion, choir and soloists are also first-rate; the only quibble is that, at 100 minutes, it all starts to overstay its musical welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seijun Suzuki—The Early Years, Vol. 2 

The renowned Japanese cult director made a voluminous number of films in his lengthy career, so it’s problematic to place him in any kind of box other than this second boxed set of five of his earliest efforts. Although all over the stylistic and narrative map, they’re linked as studies of low-lifes and other shady characters, all shot in an exuberant manner.

 

 

 

Of the five, the most interesting are The Sleeping Beast Within and Smashing the O-Line (both 1960), each featuring actor Hiroyuki Nagato in vastly different roles: but all are definitely worth a look. Hi-def transfers are first-rate; extras comprise an O-Line commentary by critic Jasper Sharp and critic Tony Rayns interview.

 

Shakespeare Wallah 

(Cohen Film Collection)

One of the earliest Merchant-Ivory productions, this 1965 comic drama follows a British classical theater troupe on tour through India and the romantic and other entanglements that ensue throughout. The movie suffers from obvious writing (by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), stilted directing (by James Ivory) and wooden acting in several key roles: its saving grace is its depiction of mutual condescension between colonizer and colonized.

 

 

 

On Blu-ray, the restored B&W film looks superb; extras include interviews with Ivory, Merchant, and actors Shashi Kapoor and Felicity Kendal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sleeping Dogs 

Roger Donaldson’s 1977 drama helped put the New Zealand film industry on the map, and its resonant depiction of a democratic nation overtaken by martial law feels all too relevant. A then-unknown Sam Neill is fierce and vivid as an everyman caught up in an anarchic political climate, and Warren Oates provides down-and-dirty support as an American army man trying to restore order.

 

 

 

The hi-def transfer is good and grainy; extras a commentary by Donaldson, Neill and actor-writer Ian Mune; The Making of Sleeping Dogs (2004), a 65-minute retrospective documentary on the film's production; and The Making of Sleeping Dogs (1977), an archival on-set featurette.

 

DVD of the Week

Killing for Love 

(Sundance Selects)

The sensational murder trial of young American woman Elizabeth and German boyfriend Jens—both given life sentences for killing her parents—is recounted in Marcus Vetter and Karin Steinberger’s engrossing and unsettling documentary.

 

 

 

Centered around an interview with Jens, currently in prison and recanting his confession, the film is a disturbing dive into the intricacies and unfairness of our justice system. Imogen Poots and Daniel Bruhl provide the voiceovers for both protagonists.