Critic’s Notebook: Keenlyside Rejuvenated - A Relative Winterreise Success

Critic’s Notebook: Superstar Trio on Chamber-Music Tour

Lisa Batiashvili,© Chris Singer

Also published in Die Presse: Kammermusik: Diese Kombo hat es in sich

Antonín Dvořákr Complete Piano Trios Panenka/Suk/Chuchro Supraphon US | UK | DE

Antonín Dvořákr Complete Piano Trios Beaux Arts Trio Philips/Decca US | UK | DE

Antonín Dvořákr Piano Trios Op.65 & 90 Tetzlaff2/Vogt Ondine US | UK | DE

Lisa Batiashvili, Gautier Capuçon, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet make a better-than expected Trio

It doesn’t always work: superstars doing chamber music in the grand halls of classical music. This combo, though, had something going for itself.

Chamber music in large halls is, on the one hand, a wonderful thing — a sign that this genre, hard to sell but the beating heart of classical music, can still draw a crowd. On the other hand, such music is usually less at home in places like the Great Hall of the Konzerthaus than, in it would be in its smaller, perfectly suited Mozart Hall, for example. But when soloists with the star power of Lisa Batiashvili, Gautier Capuçon and Jean-Yves Thibaudet appear together, compromises must be made.

That this one turned out not to be much of a compromise at all was remarkable — and owed to the trio’s balanced playing. No one held back, no one dominated, there were no hiearchic shenanigans, and no one got lost in precious detail. Whether in the youthful works of the first half — Debussy and Shostakovich’s early trios — or in the second, devoted entirely to Dvořák’s mature F-minor Trio Op. 65 (who was, after all, a venerable 42 when he wrote it).

The Dvořák, cleanly and spiritedly played, served as another reminder that his chamber music never really disappoints — at least not when, as here (no small feat for a team of soloists), the playing is genuinely ensemble-minded: relaxed in the Poco adagio, varied in the finale, and fleet in the Mendelssohn-like scherzo of the encore, which was played entirely in keeping with Dvořák’s spirit.

Even more intriguing were the first two pieces, however, where Batiashvili and Capuçon could truly shine: she full-bodied and rhytmically steady-as-a-rock, he slightly sentimental, bittersweet, elegant — both superbly attuned to each other. That Thibaudet sometimes drifted toward the role of accompanist rather than full creative collaborator, or that his clarity occasionally suffered from the brisk tempos, mattered little at this level of overall excellence.


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Critic’s Notebook: Out to Sea. Tonkünstler beguile with Armiliato and Akhmetshina

Also published in Die Presse: Poschners Gebet für die Seejungfrau: Das RSO im Musikverein

E.Elgar Sea Pictures Dam Janet Baker Barbirolli/LSO EMI/Warner (1965 ff) US | UK | DE

E.Chausson Poème de l’amour et de la mer Véronique Gens A.Bloch/ON de Lille Alpha (2019) US | UK | DE

Much to Sea, More to Hear; Oceanic Soundscapes from the Tonkünstler

The kind of program – and the quality – that the Tonkünstler Orchestra delivered on All Saints’ Eve in Vienna’s Musikverein was something to behold.

It was a concert that would have been worth attending for the program alone. That it turned out to be an intoxicating affair in every respect was an invigorating bonus. Under the baton of operatic superstar Marco Armiliato, whom no one thinks of as an orchestral conductor, the Tonkünstler Orchestra plunged headlong into the surging flood of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman overture: high-drama from the first bar, with the players perhaps eased by the comforting knowledge that the full opera would not follow. The sound was impressively homogeneous and rich across all sections, the tiptoeing pizzicati were delectable – everything fit, everything clicked, promising much for what was to come.

Rightly so. Not only thanks to the music, the orchestra, and the conductor, but also to the soloist. Mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, who has conquered the world’s major opera houses in no time at all, sang Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures before the intermission – five magnificent orchestral songs long beloved by listeners, if only because, sung by Dame Janet Baker, they have shared an LP for six decades with the most famous recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto (Du Pré/Barbirolli). Since you listen with your eyes first: Akhmetshina made her entrance in a dress of shimmering duchesse satin, textured like rippling waves, shading from deep blue to sea-green, adorned with a shoulder flower that might reasonably double as a sea anemone. Very much in keeping with the maritime theme.

No less impressive was what followed sonically. Penetrating throughout the middle register, beguiling in her healthy low range, always intense, always poised. So it was in the Elgar, which explored her vocal depths and was beautifully supported by the orchestra. And so it was after the interval in Ernest Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer – now finding Akhmetshina in an ultramarine gown with a texture suggesting that a painter had liberally wiped his acrylic brushes across it. Even rarer than the Elgar in concert, this work is a prime specimen of French Romanticism: illustrative, luxuriant, effusive, perfectly in line with the likes of Duparc, Debussy, and Dukas. Akhmetshina brought to it moments of high drama but also a deeply sympathetic warmth. The orchestral sound clouds – nearly on the same level of execution as in the preceding works – were a joy; a delicate cello solo at the heart of La mort de l’amour was the proverbial cherry on the top.

One might have feared that after such a highpoint, such glorious excess, the classically restrained Romanticism of Mendelssohn – namely Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage – could only feel anticlimactic. Instead, it became a serene, intimate coda of quiet grandeur and eventual exultation. What Armiliato and the orchestra conjured up here, as throughout the evening, was already one of this Musikverein season’s unforgettable experiences.


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Shakespeare Theatre hunts down rarely performed "Wild Duck"

(L to R) Alexander Hurt (Gregers Werle) and Nick Westrate (Hjalmar Ekdal) in Ibsen's The Wild Duck at Shakespeare Theatre.
Photo: Gerry Goodstein

When a production of Henrik Ibsen's dark play The Wild Duck comes to a theater near you, you should go see it. Ibsen mined some of the complex relationships of his own family to explore the concept of the "life-lie," as it is described in the play. These personal illusions, which make life bearable for the people who hold them, are torn away repeatedly due to the self-righteous interference of a vengeful character named Gregers Werle. Shakespeare Theatre Company's production, directed by artistic director Simon Godwin and seen earlier this fall at Brooklyn's Theatre for a New Audience, made for a compelling evening in the theater at a viewing on Wednesday evening at the Klein Theatre. Fair warning: as the regular groans and sounds of outrage from the audience witnessed, this play, as adapted by David Eldridge, is not for the faint of heart.

The family at the heart of the play, the Ekdals, has a number of skeletons in the closet. Old Ekdal, played with eccentric mannerisms by David Patrick Kelly, was cheated by his former business partner, Håkon Werle, the head of a prosperous family among whom Ekdal's son, Hjalmar Ekdal, was raised. To expiate his sense of guilt, Håkon has given Old Ekdal a regular pension and supported Hjalmar financially so that he could start a career as a photographer and marry and have a family. He has even put a potential wife in Hjalmar's path, his one-time maid Gina, but to cover up his own indiscetion instead of being solely for Hjalmar's good. Håkon's son, Gregers, who has long resented his father and is now determined to rip away Håkon's pious falsehoods, destroys the lives of everyone in the process.

Alexander Hurt brought a steady, almost maniacally calm pacing to the disruptive character of Gregers, whose case of "virtue-fever," as one translation put it, drives him to all of his misguided honesty. (The cadence of Hurt's voice and his still stage presence did bring to mind at times the acting style of his famous father, William Hurt, a connection that is not mentioned in the program.) Nick Westrate's Hjalmar, a bundle of enthusiasm and self-delusion, impressed more than his Victor Frankenstein last season, while Melanie Field brought the same sort of long-suffering steadfastness to his wife, Gina, as she did with Sonya in Uncle Vanya. Robert Stanton made a tall, quite insufferable Håkon, realizing him as a man who cannot accept that his attempts to make things right, without really accepting fault, convince no one around him.

Maaike Laanstra-Corn gave Hedvig, Hjalmar and Gina's daughter, a convincing teenage awkwardness, although her emotional excesses in the play's tragic ending rang false at times. The versatile Matthew Saldivar proved an exemplary foil to the wrong-headed Gregers as Relling, the doctor who befriends Hjalmar and tries to see him through these troubles, while Mahira Kakkar's Mrs. Sørby (the housekeeper who will marry her employer) and Katie Broad's Petterson filled out the Werle household with self-serving smugness.

The scenic design (Andrew Boyce) and costumes (Heather C. Freedman) anchor the action in the play's original late 19th century of candles and oil lamps. An interesting aspect of Eldridge's adaptation is the character of Jensen, the hired waiter at the (truncated) opening dinner scene at the Werle household: Alexander Sovronsky, music director of the production, plays him as a violist who then strolls in and out between scenes to link the play together with musical excerpts, including pieces by Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, for atmospheric effect.

The Wild Duck runs through November 16. shakespearetheatre.org

Stuttgart Ballet's "Onegin" comes to the Kennedy Center

Friedemann Vogel (Onegin) and Elisa Badenes (Tatiana) in John Cranko's Onegin, Stuttgart Ballet
Photo: Studio LLC

The Stuttgart Ballet returned to the United States for the first time in over thirty years last week. The company performed a choreography rarely seen here, John Cranko's Onegin, created for and premiered by Stuttgart Ballet in 1965. Cranko created this ballet about a decade after he had choreogrphed dances in a production of the Tchaikovsky opera on the same subject, but he did so without using any of Tchaikovsky's music from the opera. Instead Kurt-Heinz Stolze selected (and mostly arranged) other music by Tchaikovsky in a more or less convincing sequence, turning to selections from his piano music and excerpts from other operas. The Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Heinz, played the score with panache, including especially beautiful viola and harp solos.

The cast seen Wednesday evening in the Kennedy Center Opera House offered much beautiful dancing. The opening scene evoked the atmosphere at the Larin country estate, with the light-hearted Olga of American dancer Mackenzie Brown (who grew up in Stafford, Virginia, and joined Stuttgart Ballet in 2020) dancing with eight women, while the more pensive Tatiana of Elisa Badenes preferred to read her book alone. The Brazilian dancer Gabriel Figueredo, who joined the company in 2019, made a noble, tragic figure as Lensky, balanced and perfectly upright in his turns. Veteran dancer Friedemann Vogel made an elegant and disdainful Onegin, completely believable as he scorned Tatiana's love, even rolling his eyes at her choice of book and then dancing by himself, and too proud to step back from shooting his friend Lensky in the duel concluding Act II.

Cranko wisely chose to rethink the Letter Scene, where Tatiana writes her ill-fated message expressing her love to Onegin. The scene has some of the most emblematic music in Tchaikovsky's opera, which focusing on the letter would point up by its absence. Instead Tatiana danced in front of a mirror, seeing another dancer as her reflection and then Onegin behind that, who then stepped through the mirror to dance with her. Another pleasing innovation was Cranko's adaptation of Onegin's Sermon, which in Pushkin's original he preaches to Tatiana when he returns her letter. Rather than acting out those pompous words, Onegin ripped the letter to pieces, a gesture that Tatiana repeated at the end of Act III, when she sends Onegin away with her own sermon as the tables are turned.

Cranko included elements of folk, modern, ballroom, and acrobatic dance in his wide-ranging choreography. Esteemed dance critic Alastair Macaulay did not soft-pedal his low regard for this Onegin when he reviewed a performance of it by American Ballet Theater in 2017 (with no less than Diana Vishneva as Tatiana). He described Onegin as "a ballet that debases the powerful subtleties of its Pushkin story to the level of cheap romance and bashes at its collage of Tchaikovsky music with sensationalist dance effects and coarse rhythms." Some of these more athletic moves, including Onegin hurling Tatiana around violently (pictured), did seem overdone and sensational. Still, the ballet's more poetic moments more than made up for these few tawdry excesses. Although ticket sales reportedly tanked as regular patrons boycotted the Kennedy Center after the takeover by President Trump earlier this year, the opening night audience seemed fairly full, at least in the orchestra section.

The next ballet company to visit the Kennedy Center will be the Cincinnati Ballet, presenting its Nutcracker November 26 to 30. kennedy-center.org

Critic’s Notebook: Markus Poschner's Prayer for a Meermaid

Pictures © Amar Mehmedinovic

Also published in Die Presse: Poschners Gebet für die Seejungfrau: Das RSO im Musikverein

L.Boulanger 3 Psalms; Vieille Priere bouddhique S.Bruce-Payne, J.Podger Monteverdi C&O, Gardiner DG (2002) US | UK | DE

A.Zemlinsky The Mermaid pre-2013 Version RSO Berlin, Chailly Decca US | UK | DE

A.Zemlinsky The Mermaid New Critical Version Helsinki PO, Storgårds Ondine US | UK | DE

A thrilling concert of little-known late Romanticism — as only the RSO can deliver

Lili Boulanger, with just two dozen works and 24 years to her name, remains one of the most promising composers of the 20th century – a kind of Schubert-in-extremis of Post-Romanticism. Her talent was blindingly evident to colleagues and audiences alike by force of sheer quality. As a result, even though she only lingers at the outer margins of the repertoire, she has never truly been forgotten. And anyone who finds her name on a program and enjoys music somewhere between Debussy and Mahler – or indeed Zemlinsky – needn’t fear that here, some quota has put some mediocrity on stage to appease the zeitgeist. Instead, they can look forward to the very best that symbolist late Romanticism has to offer.

That was confirmed, impressively, by the RSO Vienna and Markus Poschner on Saturday night, when they chose for the first half of their Musikverein concert two of her works: Vieille prière bouddhique (“Old Buddhist Prayer”) and the 130th Psalm (Du fond de l’abîme / “Out of the Depths”). Both were written while the First World War was raging and are, fittingly, incandescent invocations of peace among men. One might, if not paying attention to the text, take the first for a hymn to the sea – so completely did one get swept away in great waves of sound by the orchestra, the chorus (a passionately committed Singverein), and tenor Paul Schweinester from the organ loft.

The way Boulanger handles the colors of these musical forces – in the Psalm further joined by organ and alto solo – the subtlety, the suggestion of power (suggesting it, rather than throwing it about) – is deeply impressive. Boulanger does not indulge, despite the wealth of means at her disposal; she deploys them discriminatingly, if lavishly. Anyone who hasn’t heard her music might imagine a blend of the orgiastic fervor of Mahler’s Eighth and the refinement of Debussy’s La Mer. Were religiosity always this sensual, the churches would be full. As it is, it was satisfying enough that the Golden Hall was nicely filled. A highlight within the highlight: Claudia Mahnke, whose darkly glinting voice and controlled, wide vibrato suited this kind of Romanticism superbly.

It speaks for Zemlinsky’s rightly popular Seejungfrau that she did not sink after such a first half. It’s equally noteworthy, that Zemlinsky got to the nominal main draw of the concert. Despite being a perfectly conventional romantic concert by content, there is on other major orchestra in Vienna that should have dared to program two relatively unknowns like this, no matter how glorious the music. That’s something, however, the RSO can do, and which is why it is so important for the musical landscape in Vienna. If it goes at the expense of playing ungainly contemporary music for the sake of playing it, all the better.

Poschner – who loves the Mermaid and recorded it with the RSO in the course of these performances (for Capriccio) – let the mermaid bubble merrily, the waves crash high, and the orchestra surge passionately forward. That it got very loud in the front rows was, in the Musikverein (where the work premiered in 1905), hardly avoidable. At times, one could imagine how a dolphin might feel swimming past an offshore wind farm. One wished, in those moments, for the Konzerthaus, where the work’s wonderful details would have stood a better chance of survival – and where the work was re-premiered in 1985, upon rediscovery. Still, it capped an overwhelming evening.

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