Access Atlanta > Arts > Our Reviews > Archives > 2005 > March > 24 > Entry
‘Petrouchka’ and more from ASO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Thursday in Symphony Hall. Program repeats Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. www.atlantasymphony.org.
Conductor Charles Dutoit brings the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to its peak of performance. He does this more convincingly, more thoroughly, than all other conductors I’ve heard in Symphony Hall in more than four seasons of weekly listening.
The Swiss maestro, former chief of the Montreal Symphony, has a two-week ASO residency. Last weekend, with illuminating results, he led the orchestra and chorus in Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust.”
He did it again Thursday, this time with a balanced program connecting three famously perfect pieces of music, each flawless in its own way, each holding a connection to carnivals — those joyous street fairs that, curtain pulled back, reveal all sorts of wonderfully sinister characters.
Ravel’s “Alborada del gracioso” (“The Jester’s Morning Song”) began the evening. A showpiece of sumptuous Technicolor orchestrations, Spanish rhythms and tightly controlled burlesque, the music under Dutoit’s baton sounded rather louche and breathy. This made it even more fun to hear than usual. The interpretation was fully realized by the musicians, even if their coordination wasn’t yet tight.
In Mozart’s late Symphony No. 39, Dutoit drew a gorgeous shimmer from the violins that one doesn’t often hear. He highlighted the minuet’s merry-go-round section such that it seemed to prefigure Stravinsky’s ballet “Petrouchka,” the work that closed the concert.
No program scenario was needed for Dutoit’s clearly delineated, theatrical and weighty reading of “Petrouchka,” in the composer’s 1947 revision, where a trio of marionettes comes to life and falls into a sordid (and tragic) love triangle.
When we first met the floppy, hapless hero — a low, moist honk on the contrabassoon, played by Juan de Gomar — the audience laughed. Through music alone, they got the picture. Flutist Christina Smith twittered and pirouetted as Petrouchka’s love object, the Ballerina. Pianist Peter Marshall, trumpet player Christopher Martin and a half dozen others enlivened the scene with supple, well-turned phrasing. In short, the musicians here were playing at their musical best.
The ASO players say that Dutoit rehearses them more efficiently than most of his conductorial colleagues. With a keen ear and no wasted motions, he can thus go deeper into the score with fewer loose ends. He gets the technical details aligned with his musical ideas, a powerful combination.
This week and last, the ASO seemed more relaxed, more alert and — the musicians’ highest compliment — working harder than ever to please him. In addition to his musical gifts, Dutoit gets credit as a master of group psychology. It’s exactly what the ASO needs at this stage of its march toward top-tier status. Can we bring Dutoit, or other senior maestros, back soon?
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