Access Atlanta > Arts > Our Reviews > Archives > 2005 > November > 18
Friday, November 18, 2005
Spano and ASO meet Beethoven
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Friday in Symphony Hall. Program repeats Sunday. www.atlantasymphony.org.
In Symphony Hall Friday night, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra sensibly rebounded with comfortable, popular, life-sustaining Beethoven.
A little background is necessary: Until Tuesday of this week, conductor Robert Spano and the orchestra had been rehearsing, performing and recording Osvaldo Golijov’s opera “Ainadamar,” a massive undertaking, given in-concert last week in Symphony Hall and then recorded by Deutsche Grammophon, a prestigious German label. The results were artistically exhilarating.
Having heard all three performances, I’d call the opera the composer’s most important and most emotionally gripping work to date. If Golijov focuses his unsurpassed talents and starts cranking out operas, he might become the Verdi of the 21st century. “Ainadamar,” his first opera, shows that much potential — and the ASO is right in the middle.
But back to Friday night in Symphony Hall. The ASO, in its all-Beethoven program, did show a few signs of wear, including more than the usual flubbed notes. It was obviously rehearsed in a hurry.
Yet Beethoven served his function, and in the “Egmont” Overture the ASO sounded remarkably rejuvenated.
Jonathan Biss, a fine young pianist, was soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. At 25, he’s an elegant player who always leaves me wanting more. His partnership with Spano and the orchestra was sensitive and polished, like chamber music.
As soloist, his interpretation was equally refined yet lacked an element of the personal. For all his beauty of expression, Biss’ playing felt a little generic. Maybe that’s the trend of our times: young performers fabulously well educated and virtuosic … and nowadays that’s enough for a major career.
Beethoven’s unstoppable Fifth Symphony, which closed the concert, crackled with energy. Spano’s signature style in this sort of ultra-familiar repertoire used to be manic, where the musicians seemed to explore the score as if it was a world premiere — a nifty approach for music written two centuries ago.
Now Spano’s sound has mellowed, and deepened. His conducting Friday evening radiated an almost spiritual purity, with a personal voice but no mannerisms, evoking the ghost a maestro like Otto Klemperer. (One suspects Spano’s conducting of Wagner’s “Ring,” over the summer in Seattle, left beneficial long-term effects.)
And finally, from the Musical Chairs department: the program booklet includes a picture and brief bio of Kevin Lyons, a local freelance trumpet player who has joined the ASO. Sitting fourth chair, Lyons is complementing the section in the absence of ASO principal Chris Martin, who last week was granted tenure as principal trumpet in the Chicago Symphony.
Martin’s departure, for what’s commonly described as the top trumpet job in America, might be impossible to block. But one vital mission for Spano, in the coming years, is to build the ASO into a “destination” orchestra, not a feeder ensemble for the majors. Signal cultural events, like “Ainadamar,” and excellent core concerts, like Friday’s Beethoven, are the best strategy to make that happen.
Permalink | | Categories: Classical Music
Always…Patsy Cline at Georgia Ensemble Theatre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
More like “Always … Jill Jane Clements.�
The veteran Atlanta actress doesn’t have the title role — Denise Hillis plays country star Patsy Cline — but as Louise Seger, the die-hard fan who becomes a friend, Clements is the one you can’t take your eyes off. Whether she’s sitting at the kitchen table in a white, terry cloth robe and black cat-eye glasses, bouncing along to a song on the radio or cavorting across the stage in one yellow-and-black cowgirl outfit after another, Clements steals every scene she’s in.
So it’s good that she’s in most of them.
Playing out on a three-level set framed by a red-barn backdrop, “Always, Patsy Cline� by Ted Swindley (directed here by Hillis’ husband, Chuck Tedder) is not so much a play as a revue of the country icon’s hits. If you’re a fan, you’ll be delighted to hear Hillis have her sparkly eyed way with such melancholy classics as “I Fall to Pieces,� “Sweet Dreams� and “Walkin’ After Midnight.�
When she first takes the stage singing “Back in Baby’s Arms,� it’s clear Hillis has got the caramelly Cline tone down pat (though she doesn’t swing as much). And with her dark curls and fringed satin get-ups, she does an admirable job impersonating Patsy, whose hit-filled life was cut short by a 1963 plane crash.
But for anyone who likes a little bio in their musical bio plays, a night of good music doesn’t seem quite enough — especially in a year that’s boasted two extraordinary examples of plays that got that musical-bio balance right. Both “Hank Williams: Lost Highwayâ€? at the Balzer Theater in May (also graced by Clements, as Mama Lilly) and “Mahaliaâ€? at Theatre in the Square in August used the music of their legendary subjects to explore facets of their lives.
If you come to this play not knowing much about Cline the person, you’ll leave that way — it doesn’t tell you a thing but that she was down-to-earth and friendly, and that’s not quite enough to hang a whole play on.
But Clements as Louise is enough to hang a whole night on.
Watch her imitate her boyfriend and her boss — who she makes you actually see — or ham it up onstage, conducting the Bodacious Bobcats house band with a drumstick on “Your Cheatin’ Heart.â€? Check out the way she turns something simple like the pantomime of driving a car into a sinuously hilarious line dance, powered by a steady drumbeat and her complete absorption. “I tool real good,â€? she confides to the audience, which gets a kick out of the shtick every time.
Clements shows that even with the skimpiest of parts, a real pro can create the ultimate theatrical illusion — that a particular character is real enough to believe — and remember.
Permalink | | Categories: Theater
The Long Christmas Ride Home at Actors Express
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Paula Vogel’s “The Long Christmas Ride Home� takes its audience for a ride, all right, with stops at church and Grandma’s house. But this is not the place to come to get your holiday spirit on. It’s more likely you’ll get your head twisted around by this bracingly unconventional tale of family dysfunction, time passages, Japanese art and, uh, puppet sex.
Those who know Vogel’s poetically provocative work (she won a 1998 Pulitzer Prize for “How I Learned to Drive,� which is about incest) won’t be surprised that this 90-minute one-act play is a) beautifully written and b) aimed at open-minded adults (and not — NOT — kids).
On a Christmas Eve in the past, Mom, Dad and three children are running the gauntlet of holiday traditions, from an unwanted sermon at church to unwanted presents from Grandma. The kids, in the back seat, are played by puppets, which are manipulated by adult actors. Dad is thinking about the woman he’s having an affair with, Mom is seethingly aware that Dad is having the affair, young Claire is thinking of the Christmas feast to come, teen Rebecca is thinking of the cute boys at school and her brother Stephen is also thinking of the cute boys at school, and wondering why.
Over the course of the evening, the family gets wound a little tighter, then a little tighter, until finally there is a point, a moment in time, when everything freezes, and shatters into shards. Those shards become the second half of the play, as the actors put down their kid-puppets and become the adults the young siblings grew up to be. (It’s much smoother than it sounds; Vogel has a way of writing in which almost everything seems inevitable.)
“Long Ride� is stuffed so full of dark comedy, melodrama, soliloquies, strange stage business and, uh, puppet sex, that in an unassured staging it could border on the ridiculous. Fortunately, this joint production by Actor’s Express and Synchonicity is simply beautiful, and beautifully simple — Rachel May’s direction is as crisp as an icy rope. The six actors are all uniformly up to the task: Jeff Feldman’s scarily intense dad, Kathleen Wattis as Mom, Stacy Melich as Rebecca, Kelly Marckioli as Claire and Adam Fristoe as Stephen, with Theroun Patterson as a sort of utility player.
Although set at Christmas, “Long Ride� doesn’t feel like a holiday play much of the time. Like the ending of “The Wizard of Oz,� though, it has brains, heart and courage. And particularly appeals to friends of Dorothy.
Permalink | | Categories: Theater
Atlanta Opera’s ‘Porgy and Bess’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OPERA REVIEW George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” Atlanta Opera. Thursday at the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. Repeat performances Saturday evening and Sunday matinee. www.atlantaopera.org.
With an all-around winning production of “Porgy and Bess,” Gershwin’s 1935 classic, the Atlanta Opera has, once again, far exceeded expectations.
It’s the first season of new leadership for the 26-year-old company, now under general director Dennis Hanthorn. The season opener, “La Traviata” in October, was easily the best show the company had every delivered. Now “Porgy,” in its long-belated company premiere, continues the rapid ascent.
But the opera itself is problematic. It’s also likely the Great American Opera. When Gershwin completed “Porgy,” his first “serious” stage work after a long run of Broadway musicals, he was on his way toward uniting the multiple threads of American music, seamlessly connecting gospel, blues, jazz, Yiddish and other immigrant folk songs and European classical and modernist styles.
Musically, he mostly succeeded. With 70 years of hindsight it’s apparent that “Porgy’s” libretto — by his brother Ira Gershwin with DuBose and Dorothy Heyward — includes too many characters and can’t decide how seriously, or sympathetically, to draw the principal roles.
The Gershwins’ depiction of Charleston’s most impoverished neighborhood — infested by drugs, gambling, sex, superstition and murder — has been likened to that of tourists enthralled by local underclass vice. In trying to capture the steamy, heady jumble of life on Catfish Row, they take too many detours, with a resulting lack of theatrical focus. What’s the central concern? Is it the main love triangle, or the bustling neighborhood itself? The Gershwins hadn’t thought that one through. At three and a half hours, it can be a long evening in the theater.
Still, it’s by far the most popular American opera. The big tunes — “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty O’ Nothin’,” “Bess, You is My Woman Now” — are fixtures of the American songbook.
The Atlanta Opera production is built on an experienced cast, many of whom have performed the opera together elsewhere.
As Porgy, Alvy Powell, has sung the cart-kneeling beggar literally thousands of times yet with an energetic delivery, a rich bass and clear diction, he made the role seem spontaneous, humane.
Marquita Lister sang Bess, one of the most emotionally screwed-up women in the opera world. Slender, tall and charismatic, Lister has a large voice to match: purring in the middle range, glassy on top and sometimes a little out of control.
With a powerful voice and presence, Cedric Cannon commanded the part of the drug, drink and testosterone-fueled Crown. The Serena, Mary Elizabeth Williams, had the most gorgeous voice on stage. Her sorrow was deeply affecting.
Sportin’ Life often steals the show. Here Chauncey Packer was the complete entertainer, sleazy and compelling, yet the others held their own against his fast-feet dance moves and ebullient persona.
Overall, this was deluxe casting, with notable contributions from Anita Johnson (as Clara, who sings the lullaby “Summertime”), Leonard Rowe (Jake), Barron Coleman (Robbins), Marjorie Wharton (Maria). Even bit parts were taken by vocally fetching singers. Maria Clark’s strawberry seller received a well-earned burst of applause for her tiny number.
Most scenes include a large crowd. The chorus was prepared by miracle worker Walter Huff. The Gershwin estate dictates that the entire “Porgy” cast (except the policemen) must be African-Americans; the Atlanta Opera chorus regulars are mostly white. Huff thus recruited several dozen superb black singers — a chorus of about 40 — and drilled them into a tight, vigorous, impassioned unit. It was the best “Porgy” chorus I’ve ever heard.
Despite this large and active cast, stage director Larry Marshall, a veteran “Porgy” performer in his own right, did a smart job keeping the story flowing, the acting authentic, the action front and center — essential for a 4,500-seat theater.
The power behind the on-stage success came from conductor Stefan Lano. An American living in Switzerland, Lano is a serious composer and was recently named music director of Buenos Aires’ venerable Teatro Colon. He’s making his local debut with Gershwin’s opera — which is, in effect, his audition for the Atlanta Opera’s music directorship.
In that regard, his “Porgy” was magnificent. Did anyone know this orchestra could play so quietly, with such nuance or, in an instant, unleash such unbridled rage and power? Although it was his first time conducting “Porgy,” he placed the opera in the context of the early-20th century modernists, from Ravel to young Copland.
Lano correctly gauged the orchestra’s sound in the cavernous Civic Center. He took a rather slow tempo for the overture’s bustle of notes, for instance, emphasizing clarity without sacrificing expression.
He managed the same throughout the evening: the conductor kept the orchestra’s articulation clean and the musical lines taut. And he did it without a hint of flash or ego, where the musicians in the pit and the singers on stage seemed bonded as one ensemble. They get the credit; he did the hard work. And it’s yet another sign of the company’s new-found confidence and quality.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Classical Music
