Valery Gergiev is a ubiquitous musical presence, seemingly able to conduct operas and concerts on several continents simultaneously. Director of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre since 1988, he is touring North America with its orchestra, chorus and soloists; they stopped off in New York’s Carnegie Hall for three concerts devoted to two Gergiev specialties by Hector Berlioz: the Dramatic Symphony Romeo et Juliette and the opera Les Troyens. The performances were simply magnificent; no wonder he is among today’s busiest, most sought-after conductors. The chorus, in the grand Russian tradition, is superb; its members can emerge as soloists even without stepping forward. The orchestra is equally fine; the strings have the dark, warm sound of the best European groups, the winds are splendid. Love scenes were enhanced by beguiling clarinet obbligatos; the oboe added mournful poignancy to the tragic moments; mellow horns led the hunt, brilliant trumpets the triumphal marches.
The musicians played their hearts out, and, though positioned on stage level, never overpowered the singers – a remarkable feat. Part of the credit belongs to Berlioz, who, with masterful control, lets the orchestra soar at full strength when the singers rest and instantly subdues it when they enter. The music, like all Berlioz, alternates sophisticated complexity with almost naïve simplicity, and combines epic grandeur, drama and passion with melting lyricism, poetic ardor, and heart-breaking sorrow. But amid all the sound and fury of shrilling piccolos and clashing cymbals, it is the intimate scenes of tender affection that remain in the memory.
Romeo et Juilette is a strange realization of Shakespeare’s play. True to its title and to Berlioz’ conviction that music speaks more eloquently than words, the orchestra carries the action, sets the moods, and evokes the characters’ thoughts and feelings. (The score requires from two to ten harps; the Mariinsky had two.) The chorus, a solo mezzo-soprano and tenor act as narrators and commentators; in the last scene, the solo bass becomes Friar Lawrence and delivers a long exhortation to the warring families to finally make peace. The work is rarely performed in its entirety, as it was here, but the elfin “Queen Mab” Scherzo, depicting Romeo’s dream, is a favorite orchestral bravura piece.
By contrast, Les Troyens is a grand opera with a cast of more than 20 characters; requiring a huge chorus and orchestra and over a dozen vocal soloists, it lasts four hours and was performed in two parts on consecutive evenings. Berlioz wrote his own libretto; the first part recounts the tragic end of the siege of Troy, the second the tragic love story between the Carthagean Queen Dido and the Trojan hero Aeneas. The vocally and dramatically most demanding parts are two mezzo-sopranos as Cassandra in Part I and Dido in Part II; Aeneas, a very high, heroic tenor, appears in both parts. The singers, who included the Romeo soloists, were terrific; all except one sang from memory. In Part I, they remained static, but in Part II they acted and interacted, underlining drama and emotion with gestures and movements.
But the real hero was Gergiev. Using no podium gives him unusual freedom of movement; he walked about, turning and leaning toward the players, leapt up, and swayed to the music. He conducted Part I without baton; for Part II, he brought one out, but mostly kept it in his left hand. His knowledge of the complex scores and control of his massive forces were incredible; he was in close contact with the soloists, though he had his back to them and they hardly looked at him. Guiding and shaping each performance in every detail and as an overarching whole, he held the capacity audiences spellbound until the tumultuous ovations.
Despite a huge snow storm and a prediction of one, people came out in droves to the large Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall to see Emanuel Ax and Joshua Bell. In many ways, violin and piano recitals sound best in smaller, more intimate spaces for which they were intended, but Ax and Bell sell lots of tickets and they need a space that can meet demands. On February 10th, 2010, Manhattan received about 10 inches of snow—not nearly as much as Washington D.C. got the week before—but nonetheless, it was enough to potentially scare people away. Good thing Emanuel Ax has such a great following; the many that attended were treated to a 200th Anniversary celebration of Chopin and Schumann’s birth. Ax was at his best in music by Chopin: the Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat, the Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise, and especially three Mazurkas: the op 41, No. 1 in C-sharp Minor; the Op. 24, No. 2 in C Major and the Op. 56, No. 3 in C Minor. The young Brit Thomas Ades wrote three mazurkas of his own for the occasion, and they are charming—although they don’t really sound like mazurkas. The first one was almost a carbon copy of Prokofiev, but the last two were quite inventive, with unusual leaps and harmonies. Throughout the program, Ax often used his soft-pedal, and his subdued, semi-passionate performances of Schumann’s Fantasiestucke and Fantasy in C Major lacked some grandeur and spontaneity in faster passages. His encore, the Chopin Waltz in A minor, was also one of his more automatic-pilot performances. Maybe his performance inadvertently hurried as a result of subconsciously and altruistically wanting people to get home after a stormy day. (I know; it’s a stretch)
James Levine, who just recovered from spinal surgery, has returned to the Metropolitan Opera pit and the concert stage in fine fettle. At his January 24th Carnegie Hall appearance with the MET Orchestra – their second this season – his high-voltage energy, fiery temperament, exuberance, and emotional—as well as mental—concentration were totally unimpaired. However, his conducting technique seemed to have undergone a startling change. Since the musicians, after many years of collaboration, are so attuned to him that they respond to the merest lift of his eyebrows, his motions used to be “close to the vest” and so small as to be invisible to the audience. His rapport with the orchestra is still palpable, but his gestures have now become big and sweeping: he waves his arms in all directions, turning and swaying from side to side. It was very exciting. The program was framed by two of the repertoire’s most popular symphonies: Schubert’s “Unfinished” and Beethoven’s Fifth. Levine seems to have succumbed to the current penchant for extreme dynamic contrasts, from the softest murmur of whispering strings to the most thunderous use of timpani. The opening of the Schubert was nearly inaudible, but otherwise, it was beautifully lyrical and introspective. The Beethoven was extremely dramatic, and the orchestra played splendidly, as always. Levine, in addition to conducting four operas at the Met, is returning to Carnegie Hall for two concerts with the Boston Symphony, plus directing Met Chamber Ensemble Concerts and master classes. The audience gave this intrepid musical superman a hero’s welcome and rewarded him with standing ovations.
If any orchestra should tour with Holst’s “The Planets”, the Houston Symphony should—due to its relationship with NASA and the Johnson Space Center. But a film experiment directed by Duncan Copp called “The Planets: an HD Odyssey” didn’t work: the space images and video, though extraordinarily clear and beautiful, were too generic for Holst’s mythical descriptions of the planets and our own imaginations that inevitably follow. It was like experiencing an orchestra play James Horner’s riveting music to the film
In the first concert of its 44th New York season, Continuum did one of the things it does best: explore important, talented composers who are relatively unknown in this country. Music of Canada was presented in a program entitled “Northern Exposures: Canadian Music—The New Individualists.” I came away from this program thinking that Canadian composers are indeed unique and tend to go their separate ways.