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Film and the Arts

The Imaginative Worlds of “Firebird” & “AFTERITE”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 25 May 2018 16:18; Written by Jack Angstreich

Scene from Firebird. Photo: Gene Schiavone.

After a terrific inaugural performance for the new season at American Ballet Theater with Giselle, the second week sustained the first’s excitement with a brilliant presentation—on the evening of Tuesday, May 22nd—of The Firebird as amazingly reimagined by Alexei Ratmansky—almost certainly the greatest choreographer of his generation—gloriously scored by Igor Stravinsky after a Russian fairytale. The striking set was designed by Simon Pastukh while the colorful costumes are by Galina Solovyeva and the effective lighting is by Brad Fields with projections by Wendall Harrington.

The event featured a marvelous cast headed by the dazzling Christine Shevchenko, riveting in the title role, although I doubt anyone will ever equal the astonishing Natalia Osipova who originated the part which she was born to play. Thomas Forster was excellent as Ivan—he was also memorable as the village huntsman in Giselle. Brilliant too were Duncan Lyle as the evil sorcerer Kaschei and Catherine Hurlin as the Maiden who is the object of Ivan’s affection, while the superbcorps de balletwas unusually outstanding.

The second half of the program was also remarkable, featuring another recasting of a classic Stravinsky ballet, in this case the extraordinary Rite of the Spring, here completely rethought with startling originality by the inspired, if eccentric, Wayne McGregor as AFTERITE—co-commissioned by American Ballet Theater and The Royal Danish Ballet—which received its world premiere on the previous night, and which has scenography and costumes by Vicki Mortimer, lighting by Lucy Carter, and video design by Ravi Deepres. The author conceived the piece as a work of dystopian science-fiction but if the narrative was largely opaque, this was insignificant given the intense engagement on the formal level. The success of the proceedings undoubtedly just as much depended upon the exceptional cast, which included Jeffrey Cirio, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, Alessandra Ferri, Blaine Hoven, Duncan Lyle, Calvin Royal III, Hee Seo, Cory Stearns, Cassandra Trenary, James Whiteside, Aran Bell, and Stephanie Williams.

May '18 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 24 May 2018 20:19; Written by Kevin Filipski

CDs of the Week

Béla Bartók—Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Ondine)

The violin concertos of Béla Bartók (1881-1945), separated by 30 years, are the works of first a youthful virtuoso gaining his footing and then of a sublime master.

That’s not to say that the first concerto (1908) is in any way inferior; in soloist Christian Tetzlaff’s dazzlingly capable hands, it’s a beguiling, buoyant piece of music (Bartók wrote it for a young woman violinist he was head over heels for), while the second concerto (1938) is, simply, a mesmerizing masterpiece. Both are played with great feeling by Tetzlaff and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hannu Lintu.

William Walton—Viola Concerto and Other Works (Chandos)

William Walton (1902-1983) has a reputation as a facile composer who penned Laurence Olivier’s Shakespeare scores and royal coronation marches, but his output was far more wide-ranging and substantial than that. The works on this disc combine his facility for memorable melodies with his skill for equal parts darkness and light.

The impassioned Viola Concerto, despite being revised twice—the second time more than 30 years after it was first composed in 1929—manages to retain a completeness all its own, buoyed by soloist James Ehnes’ lovely playing. The Sonata for String Orchestra—a transcription of his own A Minor Quartet—and Partita for Orchestra alternate between verve and lyricism; conductor Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra bring out the works’ musicality.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg/Dmitry Kabalevsky—Concertos (Capriccio)

The remarkable renaissance continues for Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1918-1996), who has gone from nearly unknown to towering genius thanks to a flurry of recordings and performances over the past decade or so. This disc pairs his striking and lyrical Violin Concerto (1959)—played with apt vigorousness by Benjamin Schmid—with two attractive concertos by another under-the-radar Russian, Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904-1987), Weinberg’s contemporary in the Soviet music sphere.

Claire Huangci dispatches the lively 1961 Piano Fantasy (after Schubert’s solo piano classic) with tuneful ease, while Harriet Krijgh makes the most of the melodious Cello Concerto No. 1 (1948-9). Cornelius Meister sensitively leads the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in all three works.

"Giselle" Dazzles at American Ballet Theater

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 21 May 2018 15:20; Written by Jack Angstreich

Hee Seo in Giselle. Photo: Gene Schiavone

The new season at American Ballet Theater opened strongly with its very first performance on the evening of Monday, May 14th, a marvelous presentation of the beloved Giselle —one of the oldest surviving ballets—set to the immortal, melodious score by Adolphe Adam, with a libretto by the esteemed French writer, Théophile Gautier, after a retelling of a Slavic legend by the great German poet, Heinrich Heine. The ravishing choreography is after that of Jean Coralli, Jules Perrot and Marius Petipa and the current staging is by the company’s director, Kevin McKenzie, with unusually attractive scenography by Gianni Quaranta, appealing costumes by Anna Anni, and effective lighting by Jennifer Tipton.

This performance featured an outstanding cast, impressively led by the lovely Hee Seo, supremely touching in the title role, confidently partnered by the remarkable Roberto Bolle as the dashing Count Albrecht. Rounding out the principals was the extraordinary Gillian Murphy in an unforgettable turn as Myrta, the magnificent queen of the supernaturalwilis.

The secondary cast was also brilliant, including the dynamic Thomas Forster as Hilarion, the village huntsman that unrequitedly loves the heroine—he was thrilling in the concluding act, where he meets his tragic end. Skylar Brandt and Joseph Gorak—two jewels of the company—were delightful in the extended peasantpas de deuxin the first act. Also exquisite were Katherine Williams as Moyna and Zhong-Jing Fang as Zulma, while th ecorps de ballet were in superb form. I excitedly anticipate the remainder of the season.

NYC Theater Review—Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Sunday, 20 May 2018 23:01; Written by Kevin Filipski

Long Day’s Journey into Night
Written by Eugene O’Neill; directed by Sir Richard Eyre
Performances through May 27, 2018

Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville in Long Day's Journey into Night (photo: Richard Termine)

Long Day’s Journey into Night, Eugene O’Neill’s greatest play, is an epic-length exploration of a self-destructive family—the father, retired stage actor James Tyrone; his morphine-addled wife Mary; and their sons, alcoholic Jamie and poetic but sickly Edmund (the author’s self-portrait)—in which the four characters take turns psychologically and emotionally pummeling one another and themselves, building into a dramatically potent accumulation of vitriolic acid that, in the right hands, makes for a shattering theatrical experience.

O’Neill himself went to a sanatorium for TB around the time the play is set (1912), which lends credence to the notion that this incriminating but insightful glimpse into the disastrous effects of a family’s self-destruction helped lead to his own successful playwriting career. (Ironically, although he wrote this play in 1941-2, it wasn’t staged until three years after his 1953 death, for which he posthumously won the Pulitzer and Tony Awards.)

Sir Richard Eyre’s London production, in the cozy confines of the Harvey Theater at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, has many faults, led by Rob Howell’s angled and expressionist set, which though it generously allows for Peter Mumford’s gorgeously textured lighting, is too refined and elegant for what should be a semi-rundown Connecticut summer cottage. Although aware of the broken music in O’Neill’s painful, at times melodramatic words, Eyre too often overemphasizes the tragic aspect of these people bumping up against one another like small craft in a tempest-tossed harbor, allowing wincingly overdone moments among the capable cast.

While Rory Keenan makes an aggressively cynical Jamie, Matthew Beard’s Edmund is a lanky, blurry portrait of a would-be artist; neither actor either acquits himself admirably or embarrasses himself. Similarly, Jeremy Irons is too boisterous as James, with overly hammy line readings and gesticulations getting in the way of his performance—that despite the fact that James Tyrone is an actor…and an elderly, hammy one at that.

Lesley Manville’s Mary should be the heart of this Journey, and despite a distractingly flat American accent, she often has searingly dramatic moments as the drug-addicted wife and mother in denial about everyone, including herself. It’s too bad, then, that Eyre coaxes her into forced or overstated histrionics, which end up giving her final, poignant lines of dialogue far less resonance than they—and O’Neill—deserve after 3-1/2 hours of unparalleled emotional devastation.

Long Day’s Journey into Night
BAM Harvey Theatre, 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY
bam.org

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