Cleveland Orchestra Performs "From the House of the Dead"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 21 March 2025 13:56

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Fadi Kheir

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Tuesday, March 18th, I had the great pleasure to attend a terrific concert presented by Carnegie Hall—the first of two on consecutive days—featuring the amazing Cleveland Orchestra under the superlative direction of Franz Welser-Möst.

The event started fabulously with a dazzling account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s magnificent, incredibly famous Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67. The initial, Allegro con brio movement is dramatic, stirring, even exhilarating, while the ensuing Andante con moto is stately on the whole, with some almost pastoral passages—the music gradually intensifies, becoming more playful briefly near the movement’s end. The relatively brief Allegro that follows is forceful with an awesome, fugue-like section, succeeded by a slower, more tentative episode. The stunning, Allegro finale is exuberant and exultant, but with quieter, graceful interludes; it concludes triumphantly.

A highlight of the evening was the first work in the second half of the concert: an excellent rendition of the seldom played, marvelous, superbly orchestrated Suite from Leoš Janáček’s opera—first performed in 1930—From the House of the Dead. According to Hugh Macdonald’s useful notes on the program, “In 1979, conductor František Jílek devised an orchestral suite from three sections of the work.” He adds that, “The first movement is the opera’s Prelude.” Marked Moderato, it has some folk-like elements, and is kaleidoscopic and ultimately mesmerizing. Macdonald then explains that: 

The second movement is music that accompanies a play within the opera in Act II. The prisoners are working outside on the construction of a riverboat. On an improvised stage, they perform two plays, mostly in mime. The first is the Don Juan story, with the Don being carried off by devils at the end, and the second is “The Miller’s Beautiful Wife,” based on a short story by Gogol about a wife who hides her lovers around the room while her husband is away. The last lover turns out to be Don Juan, who dances off with the miller’s wife before the flames consume him.

An Andante, the movement is again variegated, even heterogeneous, but once more bewitching in its ingenuity and imagination—it finishes unexpectedly. The annotator concludes: 

The last movement represents the original ending of the opera. Alexandr Petrovic, the leader of the group of prisoners, is to be released along with an eagle that the prisoners caught earlier. There is a sense of freedom and triumph, even though, at the close, the prison guards order the remaining prisoners back to work.

Also with a Moderato tempo, some of this has affinities with musical Impressionism—it closes brilliantly.

The night finished satisfyingly with an exceptional realization of Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72b, from 1806—its performance surpassed the recent one of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Marin Alsop. The annotator records that:

[ … ] the three Leonore overtures are incorrectly numbered, misnumbered when they were published, and not, as it turns out, in the order in which they were written. No. 2 was the first Beethoven wrote, No. 3 the second, and No. 1 the third, all to some extent sharing musical material. The Fidelio Overture itself, quite different from the others, came last.

He says further:

By common consent, No. 3 is the finest as a self-supporting concert work, although in the theater it is usually felt to dwarf the opening act musically and preempt the final act dramatically. No doubt Beethoven felt the same, for his replacement for it, No. 1, is shorter and much milder in tone. And the eventual final replacement, the Fidelio Overture, makes no reference to the opera’s music and serves simply as a curtain-raiser.

According to the annotator, the No. 3 was composed “for a revival of the opera in Vienna [ … ] building on themes that had served in the original overture in 1805 and expanding their reach and impact.” The introduction is measured and portentous; Macdonald reports: “In the slow section, the melody from Florestan’s Act II aria, when he lies in a dark subterranean dungeon in mortal despair, is briefly given out by clarinets and bassoons before the music winds itself up for the transition to the Allegro.” About the lively middle part, which has its quiet moments, he cites some passages as remarkable:

These include the second main theme in the bright key of E major, which is another version of Florestan’s aria played by the flute over the violins. Then, in the middle of the action, everything stands still as a trumpet call is heard from the distance. This is the signal, in the opera, for the arrival of the Minister, who will intervene in time to stop Florestan’s murder at the hand of the evil prison governor. The trumpet call is heard a second time, confirming the prisoner’s rescue and the joy of his wife, Leonore, who has contrived to get into the dungeon disguised as a young man named Fidelio.

The coda is propulsive, breathless and jubilant; about it, the annotator astutely observes that for the composer, “it was the ultimate affirmation of constancy, liberty, and human courage.”

The artists, deservedly, were very enthusiastically applauded.

Off-Broadway Review—Sam Shepard’s “Curse of the Starving Class” with Calista Flockhart and Christian Slater

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 20 March 2025 14:28

Written by Kevin Filipski

Christian Slater and Calista Flockhart with Lois in Curse of the Starving Class (photo: Monique Carboni)

New York Philharmonic Premiere New Nico Muhly Concerto

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 18 March 2025 14:58

Written by Jack Angstreich

Marin Alsop conducts the New York Philharmonic. Photo by Brandon Patoc

At Lincoln Center’s excellent David Geffen Hall on the night of Saturday, March 8th, I had the pleasure to attend a superb concert featuring the New York Philharmonic under the estimable direction of the eminent conductor, Marin Alsop. 

The event started enjoyably with a creditable account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s classic Leonore Overture No. 3, Op. 72b, from 1806. The opening Adagio section is tentative in character but the middle Allegro part is stirring and exhilarating although with some more subdued passages; the closing Presto component is exuberant and propulsive, ending forcefully. 

The impressive soloist Renaud Capuçon then entered the stage for a striking rendition of Nico Muhly’s remarkable Violin Concerto, which was commissioned by Paul J. Sekhri and this ensemble and received its world premiere with these performances. Muhly is justly celebrated for his score Cascades—for choreographer Justin Peck’s wonderful ballet Rotunda—as well as his powerful and memorable, acclaimed Metropolitan Opera commission, Two Boys. About the new piece, Muhly has said:

I know what I've done, and I know what I haven't done. You have these seeds that you've planted for yourself and little gifts that you've given yourself through all your previous experience. Writing this, I felt like I was in a good relationship with what I've done before and things that I'm interested in doing in the future.

He also provided this comment on it:

The fundamental question of a concerto is: what is the relationship between this one person and a bunch of other people? There's a built-in narrative to it, if you want it or not. There's a piece of theater present in any concert, but in a concerto there's this additional one-versus-many element. Composers have to have an answer for what that relationship is. This year, I knew I was writing four concerti back-to-back. All of them involve different relationships between soloist and ensemble. In this particular one, I leaned into a more traditional relationship, but the concerto goes in and out of the violin leading the orchestra, the orchestra leading the violin, and then a more combative relationship, which you see in the first movement. 

You have this one person in the center, and then there's a conductor, and then there are the principal players in the strings, and then there's this radiating out of sound. There are actually a jillion violins on stage, and suddenly having the ear and the eye drawn toward the extreme edge of the stage has a certain power to it. The back of a violin section has a lot of sonic potential: it's the person farthest away from the soloist, but it's the same instrument, so it has an almost electronic effect, where it's like a distant echo. It's also kind of fun. I don't want to say it's an inside joke, but when do you get to play a solo if you're sitting at the back — It's like a fun little Easter egg.

The concerto begins somewhat mysteriously but it engagingly if slowly intensifies in rhythm and ends abruptly. The work seems to reflect the influence of minimalism, especially as practiced by composers like Philip Glass and John Adams.

The second half of the evening was even more compelling, starting with a delightful version of Johannes Brahms’s extraordinary Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a, from 1873. The initial, Andante Chorale St. Antoni is pleasurable while the first Variation, marked Poco più animato, is fugue-like and the second (Più vivace), dynamic. The enchanting third, Con moto Variation is followed by the solemn, Andante con moto fourth and the ebullient, Vivace fifth. The stately, march-like but jubilant, sixth Variation—also with a Vivace tempo—precedes the elegant, charming, Grazioso seventh and the captivating, Presto non troppo eighth, while the Andante Finale is ultimately triumphant.

The concert’s conclusion was its pinnacle: a ravishing realization of Igor Stravinsky’s magnificent Suite from his famous ballet, The Firebird, presented in its 1919 version. In his useful notes on the program, James M. Keller—former New York Philharmonic Program Annotator; San Francisco Symphony program annotator; and author of Chamber Music: A Listener's Guide—offered this summary of the work’s scenario:

The tale involves the dashing Prince Ivan (Ivan Tsarevich), who finds himself wandering through the garden of the evil King Kashchei, whose power resides in a magic egg that he guards in an elegant box. In Kashchei's garden, the Prince captures a Firebird, which pleads for its life. The Prince agrees to spare it if it gives him one of its magic tail feathers, and it agrees. Thus armed, the Prince continues through his evening and happens upon 13 enchanted princesses. The most beautiful of them catches his eye, and (acting under Kashchei's spell) lures him to a spot where Kashchei's demonic guards can ensnare him. Before he can be put under a spell himself, the Prince uses the feather to summon the Firebird, which reveals to him the secret of the magic egg. The Prince locates and smashes the egg, then goes off to marry the newly liberated Princess, with whom, of course, he will live happily ever after.

The first movement—The Firebird and Its Dance; Variation of the Firebird—opens uncannily with an almost sinister ethos; a lyrical theme ushers in the appearance of the dazzling Firebird. The bewitching second movement—The Princesses' Round-Dance (Khorovod)—is succeeded by the startling, mesmerizing, extravagant Infernal Dance of King Kashchei. The ensuing, haunting, exquisite Lullaby is some of the most beautiful music ever composed, while the stunning Finale builds to a blaze of glory.

The artists, deservedly, were enthusiastically applauded.