It's always nice when a cello soloist finishes his phrases with a flourish, but last Friday night while we were at the Kennedy Center watching the National Symphony, the cellist had such a flourish we practically saw bows flying through the air.
British cellist Steven Isserlis played the Haydn Cello Concerto in C Major for a highly appreciative crowd. His appearance and performance technique were striking, however. He has a lot of salt-and-pepper, long, curly hair that he tossed around. His hair and bow flinging were in great contrast to the fleet-fingered, light, and delicate way he played—made love to—his cello. While some cellists sit hunkered over their instruments, he sat upright with his head elevated, and instead of scrubbing the strings, he lightly caressed them with his bow.
The Haydn was preceded by a work I'd never before heard, the 1906 work Serenade, Op. 3, by Hungarian Leó Weiner. I found the work rather frothy and trivial, but under the steady hand of Maestro Iván Fischer, the NSO played with a lovely, tight, ensemble sound.
After the interval, the full orchestra returned to play Rachmaninoff's famous Symphony No. 2 in E minor. It was a very solid performance, and Fischer really punctuated the fourth and final movement with a lot of conducting acrobatics.
I was pleased to see the concertmistress looking better this week. She wore a long, three-quarter length sleeved blouse with rhinestone studded cuffs over a full floor length skirt.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Marlowe? Bacon? DeVere? What's-his-name's play.
In the 16th century, the English language finally was settling into what we now know as "modern English." Elizabeth I was on the throne, and the people were finally starting to calm down about who was more Christian, Catholics or Protestants. England was a conservative place. Morals were enforced by designated churchmen, much the same as Saudi Arabia has religious police today. And, one of those morals was a prohibition on women appearing as actors on stage.
It was into this environment that William Shakespeare penned one of his most popular and well-known plays, Romeo and Juliet, knowing that the role of Juliet would be played, not by a beautiful, young, teenaged girl (Juliet is only thirteen years old), but by a boy with an unchanged voice. Such was the world of drama in Elizabethan England.
Here in modern Washington, we are blessed with a stable, well-funded, experienced group of actors at the nationally-known Shakespeare Theatre Company. During October, they have been running Romeo and Juliet, and we were fortunate to have seen the show this past weekend.
Director David Muse wanted to do something to "freshen up" the production—clearly one of the old war horses of the Shakespearean category—so they opted to follow the practices of Elizabethan England with an all-male cast of characters. With all the gravitas they could muster, men played each of the female roles in the play. And, this was a very serious play, not some gay-inspired farce, that sought to replicate old performance practice.
It worked.....almost. Certainly, I was not bothered by the men playing the roles, and those men playing the older women were all very effective. Even the man playing Juliet was very good, but therein lied the fault; a man played the role, not a boy. That may not have been a problem in and of itself, but it was, to me, a failure in the pairing of the Juliet they cast, James Davis, with the Romeo, Finn Wittrock. Now, in their own scenes, Davis and Wittrock both were very good. Wittrock was very believable as a 15 or 16 year old teenager with his energy and his angst. Davis made a comely and effective young woman. That was problem number one. Juliet seemed to be a young woman, whilst Romeo seemed to be a teenager. Then there was the physical pairing. Romeo was quite noticeably shorter than Juliet, the nurse, and Lady Capulet. And finally, when they were together, I didn't feel the love and infatuation between them.
That lack of emotion seemed underscored in two key scenes. First, in the famous bedroom scene, there was no bedroom scene. They simply walked out on the balcony, Juliet in her dress, and Romeo with his shirt off (but quickly put back on), then Romeo climbed down the wall, and all the lines were delivered from there. No love. No romance. No "ahhs." Finally, in the end, the suicides were too quick and mechanical, especially Juliet's, and there was no room for the audience to cry, to mourn, to experience catharsis.
Otherwise, this is a dazzling production. Making use of the thrust stage in their new Harmon Center for the Arts (they continue to retain their proscenium stage at their Lansburgh Theatre in another building downtown), the stage was painted in wood tones with a large sunburst pattern in the center. In the background, we could see a series of three flat arches for depth and various entrances upstage. The furthest downstage arch housed a balcony and a series of bars were attached to the side support wall for Romeo to climb up and down.
Costumes were fascinating and varied—that's one of the advantages of being in a house with a large budget and a large wardrobe department. There was a little of the red and blue Capulet and Montague theme going on, but it wasn't overwhelming.
The thing that impressed me most, though, were the props. With essentially a bare stage and no curtain, all of the atmosphere had to be created with props. Many of the props were ingeniously designed, serving many different purposes with just quick adjustments. Some props, too, were stunning, such as the tall, beautiful, floral topiaries brought in for the Capulet ball.
The show saw some very strong performances from Aubrey Deeker as a great, energetic, fun Mercutio, and from STC regular Ted Van Griethuysen as Friar Lawrence, plus a noteworthy but slightly over the top go at the nurse by Drew Eshelman. I wasn't quite so impressed by Cody Nickell as Tybalt, but that may have been an issue of direction (more on this later). We also saw solid work from Hubert Point-Du Jour as Benvolio, Dan Kremer as Lord Capulet, and Tom Beckett as Lady Capulet.
It's been a while since I last read the play, so I'm not totally sure exactly who was to say what. I seem to recall, though, that some of the lines seem to have been rearranged or maybe even supplemented with new text. I don't know what was the practice in the 16th century, but there were parts of the prologue and epilogue that weren't delivered by a single actor, but by multiple members of the large cast.
They played up the bawdy nature of some of the lines—again, a common period thing—and there was quite a bit of sexual humor, including one spot after the party when Mercutio relieves himself on stage.
Now, I don't think I'm spoiling anything, given how well-known is the play, but they made a major change in the mechanism of death for Tybalt. As you know, Tybalt stabs Mercutio, then Romeo gets mad and kills Tybalt.....Shakespeare had Romeo kill Tybalt with a sword, but in this production, Romeo does the deed by drowning Tybalt in a barrel of water on stage! It was a very effective and violent death, but we were just kind of looking at one another thinking, "huh?" and then thinking that again when Lady Montague's lines referred to stabbing.
Finally, there was one sour note running through the production. Original, 21st century music was written for this production by a group called The Broken Chord Collective, and it just didn't fit. What's more, the actors singing the music weren't really what I would call "musical," but the production—same as the bad habit we often see on Broadway—didn't want them to be musical. It annoyed me, and I don't think it added to the show.
Last weekend was the last weekend of the run (actually, it had been extended), so, you won't get a chance to go see the show. Sorry I didn't get my review written up more quickly. Nonetheless, STC has a full season planned, and I'm looking forward to Twelfth Night in December.
It was into this environment that William Shakespeare penned one of his most popular and well-known plays, Romeo and Juliet, knowing that the role of Juliet would be played, not by a beautiful, young, teenaged girl (Juliet is only thirteen years old), but by a boy with an unchanged voice. Such was the world of drama in Elizabethan England.
Here in modern Washington, we are blessed with a stable, well-funded, experienced group of actors at the nationally-known Shakespeare Theatre Company. During October, they have been running Romeo and Juliet, and we were fortunate to have seen the show this past weekend.
Director David Muse wanted to do something to "freshen up" the production—clearly one of the old war horses of the Shakespearean category—so they opted to follow the practices of Elizabethan England with an all-male cast of characters. With all the gravitas they could muster, men played each of the female roles in the play. And, this was a very serious play, not some gay-inspired farce, that sought to replicate old performance practice.
It worked.....almost. Certainly, I was not bothered by the men playing the roles, and those men playing the older women were all very effective. Even the man playing Juliet was very good, but therein lied the fault; a man played the role, not a boy. That may not have been a problem in and of itself, but it was, to me, a failure in the pairing of the Juliet they cast, James Davis, with the Romeo, Finn Wittrock. Now, in their own scenes, Davis and Wittrock both were very good. Wittrock was very believable as a 15 or 16 year old teenager with his energy and his angst. Davis made a comely and effective young woman. That was problem number one. Juliet seemed to be a young woman, whilst Romeo seemed to be a teenager. Then there was the physical pairing. Romeo was quite noticeably shorter than Juliet, the nurse, and Lady Capulet. And finally, when they were together, I didn't feel the love and infatuation between them.
That lack of emotion seemed underscored in two key scenes. First, in the famous bedroom scene, there was no bedroom scene. They simply walked out on the balcony, Juliet in her dress, and Romeo with his shirt off (but quickly put back on), then Romeo climbed down the wall, and all the lines were delivered from there. No love. No romance. No "ahhs." Finally, in the end, the suicides were too quick and mechanical, especially Juliet's, and there was no room for the audience to cry, to mourn, to experience catharsis.
Otherwise, this is a dazzling production. Making use of the thrust stage in their new Harmon Center for the Arts (they continue to retain their proscenium stage at their Lansburgh Theatre in another building downtown), the stage was painted in wood tones with a large sunburst pattern in the center. In the background, we could see a series of three flat arches for depth and various entrances upstage. The furthest downstage arch housed a balcony and a series of bars were attached to the side support wall for Romeo to climb up and down.
Costumes were fascinating and varied—that's one of the advantages of being in a house with a large budget and a large wardrobe department. There was a little of the red and blue Capulet and Montague theme going on, but it wasn't overwhelming.
The thing that impressed me most, though, were the props. With essentially a bare stage and no curtain, all of the atmosphere had to be created with props. Many of the props were ingeniously designed, serving many different purposes with just quick adjustments. Some props, too, were stunning, such as the tall, beautiful, floral topiaries brought in for the Capulet ball.
The show saw some very strong performances from Aubrey Deeker as a great, energetic, fun Mercutio, and from STC regular Ted Van Griethuysen as Friar Lawrence, plus a noteworthy but slightly over the top go at the nurse by Drew Eshelman. I wasn't quite so impressed by Cody Nickell as Tybalt, but that may have been an issue of direction (more on this later). We also saw solid work from Hubert Point-Du Jour as Benvolio, Dan Kremer as Lord Capulet, and Tom Beckett as Lady Capulet.
It's been a while since I last read the play, so I'm not totally sure exactly who was to say what. I seem to recall, though, that some of the lines seem to have been rearranged or maybe even supplemented with new text. I don't know what was the practice in the 16th century, but there were parts of the prologue and epilogue that weren't delivered by a single actor, but by multiple members of the large cast.
They played up the bawdy nature of some of the lines—again, a common period thing—and there was quite a bit of sexual humor, including one spot after the party when Mercutio relieves himself on stage.
Now, I don't think I'm spoiling anything, given how well-known is the play, but they made a major change in the mechanism of death for Tybalt. As you know, Tybalt stabs Mercutio, then Romeo gets mad and kills Tybalt.....Shakespeare had Romeo kill Tybalt with a sword, but in this production, Romeo does the deed by drowning Tybalt in a barrel of water on stage! It was a very effective and violent death, but we were just kind of looking at one another thinking, "huh?" and then thinking that again when Lady Montague's lines referred to stabbing.
Finally, there was one sour note running through the production. Original, 21st century music was written for this production by a group called The Broken Chord Collective, and it just didn't fit. What's more, the actors singing the music weren't really what I would call "musical," but the production—same as the bad habit we often see on Broadway—didn't want them to be musical. It annoyed me, and I don't think it added to the show.
Last weekend was the last weekend of the run (actually, it had been extended), so, you won't get a chance to go see the show. Sorry I didn't get my review written up more quickly. Nonetheless, STC has a full season planned, and I'm looking forward to Twelfth Night in December.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Mahler Third
Last Thursday night, Scott and I went to the Kennedy Center to hear the National Symphony Orchestra play Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 3 in D minor, featuring Birgit Remmert, contralto; the Children's Chorus of Washington, and the women of the University of Maryland Concert Choir, all under the baton of this year's principal conductor, Iván Fischer.
We got there a bit early, since the Metro's been a bit undependable of late, so we wandered around the Kennedy Center and went out on the terrace to watch all the crews rowing up and down the river.
Some Swedish boys' school choir was singing in the far end of the Grand Foyer for the Millennium Stage. We listened about two minutes, then quickly moved on. Sometimes I have to be in the right mood to get engaged with choral performances.
Finally about a quarter to the hour, we wandered into the concert hall to find our seats. We were down on the right, first row, by the second violins and the percussionists. It's an okay place to sit, mostly because I like having all the extra leg room! We're also in the position to be able to watch the conductor work from the side, which I always find fascinating.
The concertmistress came out wearing black hostess pajama bottoms (why would she wear pants when all the men are in white tie and tails?) with a black sequined belt worn low on the hips gypsy style. Not one of her better outfits. Maestro Fischer came out in white tie. He's always fun to watch—and hear—since he's a very animated conductor with audible heavy breathes and vocalizations.
The Mahler Third is rather an unusual work, thought to have been inspired, in part, at least, by Friedrich Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spake Zoroaster). It's about a 90 minute piece, and half of it is devoted to the first of six movements. As I find typical of Mahler symphonies, I think the first and last movements are great, and the internal movements are okay, but they get rather sleepy. And, Mahler is one of those composers who can't quite put down the pen—you think the movement is over, but it goes on and on and five minutes later, he's still ending.
There's something about Mahler finales, though, that I love, especially the Second ("Resurrection"), but also in this work, that makes me feel the yearnings inside me being pulled and stretched by the music. It can be very emotional, and the NSO did a good job with the intensity and the feeling here in the Finale of the Third.
The beginning was impressive, too. Early in the opening phrases, we felt the distinct physical rumble of the low brass and then low woodwinds. In the middle, the trombone section provided terrifying music of the heavens, and ensemble member Craig Mulcahy did the solo work. The movement ended with the conductor punching the air like a boxer.
They took a short break after the first movement to get the choirs into the performance space. The university women were all attired in long black dresses. The children's choir wore wine colored sweater vests and white shirts, the boys in olive khaki trousers and the girls in olive-toned tartan plaid skirts. As the maestro reentered, we also saw for the first time the contralto soloist. Miss Remmert is an attractive young lady. She wore a simple long black dress held up by a wide strap over one shoulder. A sheer black thigh-length overlay with black sequined edges and clasped on the opposite shoulder from the dress strap finished the ensemble.
The second and third movements were pretty and pastoral, and the orchestra played well for Fischer. Movement four introduced Miss Remmert's voice to sing "Zarathustra's Midnight Song." The song, though, was short and did not afford Remmert much opportunity to show off her voice. Movement five used the two choirs, the children singing as bells and the women providing textual support. I had the impression that this movement didn't really belong in the symphony, as it had a light bounce to it that was out of context with the mood of the preceding and following movements.
Finally we got to the sixth and final movement, Adagio, beginning with a long exposition of the string section with such tight playing by the ensemble I was able to float on the music. The music was neither fast nor slow, it simply proceeded towards its goal. Fischer kept the energy and tension there to get that Mahlerian "pull," milking out every last emotion from the players and the audience. I do believe that Mahler's finale is so good that were I only to hear the one movement instead of the entire symphony, I would feel rewarded.
We got there a bit early, since the Metro's been a bit undependable of late, so we wandered around the Kennedy Center and went out on the terrace to watch all the crews rowing up and down the river.
Some Swedish boys' school choir was singing in the far end of the Grand Foyer for the Millennium Stage. We listened about two minutes, then quickly moved on. Sometimes I have to be in the right mood to get engaged with choral performances.
Finally about a quarter to the hour, we wandered into the concert hall to find our seats. We were down on the right, first row, by the second violins and the percussionists. It's an okay place to sit, mostly because I like having all the extra leg room! We're also in the position to be able to watch the conductor work from the side, which I always find fascinating.
The concertmistress came out wearing black hostess pajama bottoms (why would she wear pants when all the men are in white tie and tails?) with a black sequined belt worn low on the hips gypsy style. Not one of her better outfits. Maestro Fischer came out in white tie. He's always fun to watch—and hear—since he's a very animated conductor with audible heavy breathes and vocalizations.
The Mahler Third is rather an unusual work, thought to have been inspired, in part, at least, by Friedrich Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spake Zoroaster). It's about a 90 minute piece, and half of it is devoted to the first of six movements. As I find typical of Mahler symphonies, I think the first and last movements are great, and the internal movements are okay, but they get rather sleepy. And, Mahler is one of those composers who can't quite put down the pen—you think the movement is over, but it goes on and on and five minutes later, he's still ending.
There's something about Mahler finales, though, that I love, especially the Second ("Resurrection"), but also in this work, that makes me feel the yearnings inside me being pulled and stretched by the music. It can be very emotional, and the NSO did a good job with the intensity and the feeling here in the Finale of the Third.
The beginning was impressive, too. Early in the opening phrases, we felt the distinct physical rumble of the low brass and then low woodwinds. In the middle, the trombone section provided terrifying music of the heavens, and ensemble member Craig Mulcahy did the solo work. The movement ended with the conductor punching the air like a boxer.
They took a short break after the first movement to get the choirs into the performance space. The university women were all attired in long black dresses. The children's choir wore wine colored sweater vests and white shirts, the boys in olive khaki trousers and the girls in olive-toned tartan plaid skirts. As the maestro reentered, we also saw for the first time the contralto soloist. Miss Remmert is an attractive young lady. She wore a simple long black dress held up by a wide strap over one shoulder. A sheer black thigh-length overlay with black sequined edges and clasped on the opposite shoulder from the dress strap finished the ensemble.
The second and third movements were pretty and pastoral, and the orchestra played well for Fischer. Movement four introduced Miss Remmert's voice to sing "Zarathustra's Midnight Song." The song, though, was short and did not afford Remmert much opportunity to show off her voice. Movement five used the two choirs, the children singing as bells and the women providing textual support. I had the impression that this movement didn't really belong in the symphony, as it had a light bounce to it that was out of context with the mood of the preceding and following movements.
Finally we got to the sixth and final movement, Adagio, beginning with a long exposition of the string section with such tight playing by the ensemble I was able to float on the music. The music was neither fast nor slow, it simply proceeded towards its goal. Fischer kept the energy and tension there to get that Mahlerian "pull," milking out every last emotion from the players and the audience. I do believe that Mahler's finale is so good that were I only to hear the one movement instead of the entire symphony, I would feel rewarded.
Saturday fun
The local Scottish Rite valley held its annual Americanism program last night to give out awards to D.C. public schools junior ROTC students. They also had as a speaker Ivan Ware, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, who gave quite an interesting talk. One of the other bits of entertainment included the Williamsburg Field Musick, the trio pictured above that gives lectures around the area telling about the use of music in the early American armies. I had to go, too, since I was singing and playing the national anthem, and I played the prelude.
They had a great standup dinner beforehand with heavy hors d'oeuvres and a raw bar featuring some of the best, plumpest oysters I've had in years. I chatted with the caterer afterwards, and he told me they came from the Chesapeake Bay and had been harvested just yesterday morning. Yum.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Schedule overload
Went to the National Symphony last night. Tonight is the Shakespeare Theater. Tomorrow I have to play the organ at a big Americanism program. Busy weekend. I'll try to post something substantive soon.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
W.
Did you know the President ran for office because he had a calling from God Himself?Tonight we attended the Washington premiere of W., Oliver Stone's new movie (opening nationwide this coming weekend) about George Walker Bush. It was a full theater, including half a dozen rows of press. The audience was surprisingly supportive of the President, and when the movie tried to portray the President's malapropisms in a negative light, the only titters of laughter I heard came from the press section.
The movie weaves scenes of the Bush presidency with the history of his life since his Yale undergraduate days, with a repeated dream motif of Bush in the outfield of an empty baseball park. While some are calling the film a biography, I'm going to have to call it semi-biographical.
Certainly there are a lot of statements and materials about the President's past, plus public accounts and news footage of him over the past twenty years, so there is history available. The problem was, many things were used completely out of context, and the conversations and positions of high level governmental officials in private White House meetings are purely conjecture and highly speculative.
Josh Brolin, as the President, put in a surprisingly strong performance. He had down a lot of the President's mannerisms and way of talking, though he did, I think, from time to time, cross the line a bit into caricaturism. On the other hand, Richard Dreyfuss's performance as Vice President Cheney was chilling. Certainly, Dreyfuss will be up for a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for this movie.
Scott Glenn did a fine job as a particularly smarmy and obnoxious Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Toby Jones was effective as Karl Rove. Elizabeth Banks sympathetically did a great job as Laura Bush, and James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn portrayed the elder Bush couple.
I did have problems with the casting for then-National Security Adviser now Secretary of State Condolezza Rice. Thandie Newton did the job, but she didn't capture anything of Rice at all except the hairdo, and I felt almost offended at some of her portrayal. While not as bad, Jeffrey Wright was okay, but I don't think he had the strength or the command presence of Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The movie offers two basic themes for George Bush's life.
First, they overemphasized the presumed tension between father and son and GWB's constant quest for paternal approval from GHWB. They went so far that GHWB, long known to be a gentleman and statesman, came across as a bully and a jerk. Of course, this led to one of my favorite lines in the movie (one you've probably seen in the trailers), where GHWB is dressing down his son and his party boy behavior and says, "Who do you think you are...a Kennedy? You're a Bush. Act like one."
The second theme is the President's evangelical Christianity and how it seeps into every aspect of his life. They protray him closing every staff meeting with prayer, something I'd not previously heard reported by departed staffers in their memoirs. They also have a scene where he announces to his long-time pastor that he has heard a call from God to run for president, because something is going to happen and the country is going to need him.
Naturally, the movie spent a lot of time dealing with the Iraq war, and they got pretty judgmental about it being prosecuted solely for the preservation of the oil reserves in the Middle East. Again, the writers were speculating. There's no doubt in my mind now, though, that Oliver Stone must be against the Iraq war.
And thus was the movie. It's rather longer than I expected, coming in at about two hours and ten minutes. Would I go see it again? Not if I had to buy a ticket. Should you see it? Maybe. If you're in Washington, you're a political science or government student, or you're involved in party politics (of either flavor), you should see it, simply because it's going to be discussed in the next few weeks, as well as the implications it casts about the war. For others, you should see it eventually, but you can probably wait for the DVD to come out.
Speaking of coming out, on my way out of the theater, I was stopped by reporters from Swiss Television wanting to interview me about my impressions. I declined, though, so you don't have to stay up late tonight watching Swiss TV to see me.
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