The Philadelphia Orchestra @ Carnegie Hall

Tuesday, November 21th at 8pm

The last time Gustav Mahler ever conducted his own music was in January 1911, four months before his death at the age of 51. The piece was his Fourth Symphony (among the most popular in the composer’s day), performed by the Philharmonic Society of New York. The venue was Carnegie Hall. It was this magnificent work that Christoph Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed at Stern Auditorium as the second half of a well-proportioned program last Tuesday.

The Fourth Symphony-the last in Mahler’s early period-is probably the most immediately accessible thing Mahler ever wrote. From its opening bells and flute to the ecstatic vision of “Das himmlische Leben” (a mother goose-style picnic in heaven), it is the lightest and most unburdened. For the past few seasons, Eschenbach has led the Philadelphia Orchestra in its first-ever Mahler cycle. Tuesday night’s performance of this most deceptive and quirky of symphonies was further proof that things are going very well indeed for Eschenbach, Philly, and Mahler.

The opening movement-abundant with sleigh bells-had a sense of urgency, as if it were proclaiming Santa’s arrival. Eschenbach gave the music roundness and a bounce, but didn’t always leave enough time for the musicians to breathe. If speed threatened to diminish some of the effect, however, there was a lot of nice detail in the cellos to enjoy.

The pacing was more successful in the ethereal third movement. Here, Mahler’s delicate melodies were able to unfold deliberately, glowingly. The harp was highlighted in a way that brought to mind the equally exquisite Fifth Symphony Adagietto. Eschenbach reined in the violins from indulging in unbridled glissando and balanced out the texture between the melody line and the unusually up-front harmonies.

The fourth movement soprano was Marisol Montalvo, a singer best known for her interpretation of Lulu, and an unlikely choice for the role. First off, she was hard to hear and-at least in her approach to the song-her voice lacked coloristic variety. In her attempt to sound childlike, Montalvo sang with excited gasps over the shrill flurry of winds and strings. The result, however, was a performance that sounded less like a boy soprano (Mahler’s original choice) and more like sprechstimme.

Mahler was a great influence on Alban Berg, whose Violin Concerto was the first piece on the program. The Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos was the soloist.

Berg-best known today for his operas Wozzeck and Lulu-was part of the Second Viennese School, the group of atonal composers whose other principal members were Schoenberg and Webern. Yet Berg continues to exert a wider appeal on audiences than his dodecaphonic contemporaries, in part because he found a way to marry 12-tone and classical techniques and wrote music that is both radically modern and oddly familiar. The two-movement Violin Concerto is a prime example-here, the lyricism and balance of the melodies and the dramatic tension between soloist and orchestra (as thrilling as anything in Mendelssohn or Tchaikovsky) can make the listener forget he’s hearing an atonal work.

Kavakos’ playing was very fluid and connected in the first movement amid the halting orchestral accompaniment. Some more warmth was in order, even if detachment was the effect Kavakos was going for. He was sometimes too slight, allowing the horns to swallow him up. Eschenbach, likewise, took a cool approach that enabled a multi-layered sound to develop. At moments of tension, Kavakos slid off into airy oblivion. And more often than not, the orchestra followed Kavakos’s lead like a good dance partner.

Kavakos’ technical virtuosity was increasingly matched with expressive warmth in the second movement, shown in his playing of descending arpeggios while the orchestra played in a clipped way. A physically dynamic and coolly calculating performer, Kavakos was hard to read. His bipolar performance did get at something in the score: a battle between the formalistic tendencies of atonalism and the pure expressive content of absolute music.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia
The Metropolitan Opera

The main reason to catch the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Rossini’s beloved “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” can be boiled down to three words: Figaro, Figaro, Figaro. The electrifying Peter Mattei sings the titular barber in Barlett Sher’s (“The Light in the Piazza”) elegant if evanescent staging. The Swedish baritone brought heft, brilliant colorings and gravity to a light, breezy atmosphere of farce and folly. From the show-stopping entrance aria “Largo al factorum” to his more removed position in the final scene, Mattei was pitch-perfect and dramatically exciting. He cut a dashing figure as the clever barber and his charisma seemed to hold both his audience and costars spellbound. As he presided over the orchestrated chaos that his character sets into motion, Mattei’s presence was so magnetic that he seemed to dominate the show even while silently observing from upstage.

There are many other first raters surrounding Mattei, including the much-lauded Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez as the amorous Count Almaviva. Diego Flórez’s crisp, flexible voice and good looks have made him a recent favorite at the Met and around the world.  The Met’s website has him billed as “the greatest Rossini tenor of out time.” To be sure, his supple, agile voice makes him an ideal choice for Rossini’s dizzying coloratura fireworks. However, his voice often lacks the requisite power for filling up a house like the Met. And while he can command emotional force at key moments, too often his technically flawless singing sounds breezy and bubbly. He made a strong first impression with his opening love serenade “Ecco ridente” but was upstaged by Mattei’s Figaro. His performance also often fell victim to exaggeration and overacting. Throughout the second act, Diego Flórez seemed to be holding back, saving it all for the final scene, where his ludicrously ornate “Cessa di piu resistere” was rewarded with a well-deserved (if over-long) ovation. I would just warn Diego Flórez against thinking he’s reached the top of his game. The tenor still has a lot to learn, if he ever wants to sing beyond light Rossini and Donizetti roles.  

As the love interest Rosina, Diana Damrau was a constant delight. She was very in control of her big and boisterous voice and sang with dynamic consistency and dramatic prowess. Her quicksilver “Una voce poco fa” was one of the evening’s high points, and she coupled magnificently (and suggestively) with Mattei in “Dunque io son.”

John Del Carlo was her guardian/captor, the ridiculous Dr. Bartolo. A booming bass, he turned out a sympathetic performance of this particularly challenging role. While he had the vocal strength to last the entire evening, he was wanting in flexibility and often had difficulty in his tongue-twisting rapid runs. Rounding out the impressive cast were the estimable Samuel Ramey and Wendy White as Don Basilio and Berta respectively. Ramey resembled Fu Manchu in his flowing robe and preposterously broad hat (imagine a wearable writing desk), while his gripping voice helped make his character less preposterous. White took a break from sneezing and blowing her nose for her poignant “Il vechiotto certa moglie,” which sounded suitable melancholy.      

The singers were hardly aided by the minimal yet chaotic production, which featured plenty of orange trees, a donkey to pull Figaro’s factotum, backless sets, and an anvil crushing a cart of Styrofoam pumpkins that contributed to the totally incoherent act one finale. More successful was the springy account of the tuneful bel canto score led by Maurizio Benini. Maestro Benini’s enthusiasm helps ensure that the catchy yet irritating songs will stay with you for days on end.

BY AJ GOLDMANN

Hansel and Gretel
The New York City Opera

City has jumpstarted the holiday season with a revival of one of their finest, James Robinson’s imaginative and high-concept 1998 production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

Though a well-known figure in his day, Engelbert Humperdinck’s reputation today rests squarely on “Hansel and Gretel.” The composer’s slavish devotion to Wagner inspired him to surrender his own powers of innovation (if indeed he had any) in order to write music like the composer of the “Ring.” Indeed, Humperdinck’s on the record as saying “I’d gladly give up ‘originality’ to be able to write choruses like the ones in Parsifal.” With “Hansel and Gretel” – by far the best known of Humperdinck’s eight operas – he comes pretty damn close in mastering Wagner’s lush, brassy orchestrations and leitmotivic technique. In a sense, Humperdinck can be credited for an even greater coup than his mentor by writing a work whose appeal extends far beyond the potential audience for “Meistersinger.”

City’s somewhat weathered production is a classic in every sense of the word: effective, elegant and original. The production (and English-language performing translation) transposes the action from the Brothers Grimm original to late 19th century Manhattan, where Hansel and Gretel live in a tenement with their German immigrant parents. They make their way uptown in search of dinner and wind up, lost and exhausted in Central Park. The witch is in fact a high society lady, and her pastry mansion – you guessed it – is a mansion on the Upper East Side.

They’ve assembled a fine cast to boot, singing the clever and metrically accurate translation of Cori Ellison. The Ellison translation retains the German original of the folk songs, while providing compelling and amusingly updated and place-specific dialogue for the siblings as they wander around the city at night looking for supper.

The show’s brightest star was undoubtedly the soprano Jennifer Aylmer, who brought gusto and soft, subdued shading to the alternately timid and audacious Gretel. She was very much at home in her character’s middle range, never sounding muddled, dull or plain tired. Jennifer Rivera, a brusque mezzo, exaggerated Hansel’s tomboyish swagger and spunk, but she turned out a solid performance that showcased her sensuous and lulling voice, most noticeably in the bedtime prayer that ends act one. The “adults” were somewhat less consistent. The baritone Michael Chioldi boomed out the Father’s joyous (and possibly drunken) song with a fullness that had hitherto been lacking. But he often sacrificed accuracy for power. The Mother, sang by Cheryl Evans, was more controlled and suitably forlorn in her small role. And as the wicked child-eating witch, Jessie Raven was positively lurid. Appearing late in the performance, she sang the show-stopping role with maniacally voluptuous tones. They was no denying that she possessed the seductive cackle and evil glimmer to bring her mosterous character to life.

In the pit, Steven Mosteller led a spirited and full-bodied performance that could overpower some of the softer voiced (Aylmer’s included). But with music as deliriously grand and warmly reverent as this, it scarcely mattered.

You’ve been patiently waiting for the most awesome film from the most awesome band in the world, right? Well, that film has come, and it’s here to come in your ear-pussy, courtesy of Tenacious D, the joke band whose unique combination of vulgar humor and heavy metal rocking has launched them to cult status.

The D – as they are affectionately known by their fans – is actor-comedian Jack Black (JB) and Kyle Gass (KG). Their new film, “Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny,” a big-budgeted musical, tells of the band’s humble origins and their journey to becoming the self-described “greatest band in the World.”

Park rock-opera, part MTV (resembling the band’s earlier music videos and the HBO series – available on the “Complete Masterworks” DVD), the film features 15 new songs (the CD is out now from Epic Records) and memorable cameos by Meatloaf (as JB’s dad), Ronnie James Dio (as himself), Ben Stiller (who also produced the film), Tim Robbins (JB and KG’s former acting teacher), Sasquatch and, of course, Satan (from whose fang the eponymous pick is crafted).

Directed by Liam Lynch, who is responsible for many of the band’s music videos, including “Tribute,” from a script by the D, the film is an amusing if forgettable stoner comedy, best worthwhile for its spoofy Tommy-like opening (which you can watch on iFilm) and psychedelic musical number “Papagenu” and the riotous faux-concert piece “Master Exploder.” 

In an interview earlier this week held at the Gibson Guitar Showroom in midtown, JB and KG spoke about the film and the band’s future. While the film is based on the real-life encounter of JB and KG (who first met in LA in 1985) no work of art can ever been entirely truthful. “What was the figure again?” queried KG. “It’s 87 % true and 13% bullshit.” “Isn’t there anything else in there?” JB chimed in. “Like 2% that’s neither true nor false but from another dimension.” 

The movie was slapped with a hard R (for some extremely crass humor) by the MPAA. How is the D hoping to reach out to their underage fans? “Everyone’s going to buy tickets to Happy Feet and sneak over to the D movie,” explained JB.  

Usually, there can only be one hit comedy of the season. Is the D concerned about competition from Borat, which has been #1 at the box office for the past three weeks? “I am a huge fan of Sacha Baron Cohen’s,” says JB. “I think he’s a comedic revolutionary.” KG agrees. “I think he’s the funniest guy alive.” But the band is far from concerned about the competition. “It’s akin to, like, when the Beatles came in and took over Rock,” JB replies. “So we are Elvis. And I can live with that.”

File-sharing technology and the Internet has played a role in elevating the D to cult status, especially on the College Campus. How does the D feel about people stealing their music? “It’s a tough question,” said KG, “because everything on the Internet seems kinda free. Expect for the really hot pay sex sites. Those aren’t free.”

JB’s attitude was more dire: “They’ll be a time probably when you can get every movie and every album and everything that’s ever been ever put to tape for free on the Internet and then the only way to make a living at music or acting will be live theater. We’ll all be deevolutionized to go back to the basics of the Greeks in ancient times.”

With a major motion picture, the D might appear to have reached the very pinnacle of awesomeness. But JB and KG have no plans of disbanding anytime soon. They go on tour later this month with a new show, in which they form a band in Hell with Colonel Sanders, Charlie Chaplin and the Anti-Christ. “It’s Pretty high production value,” according to JB. What next? “We’ll be buying a small country, “D Land,” explained KG. “Or we could go our own religion.”

It’s hard to imagine what the D would be doing if they never met. “I’d probably be teaching 4^th Graders recorder,” KG says. “I would probably be teaching at summer camp and living at my mom’s.”

BY A.J. GOLDMANN 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra

Carnegie Hall

Saturday, November 11th @ 8pm 

Concert versions of operatic works are a risky proposition. When they work, they can astound. Undistracted by stage apparatus, both audience and performers can focus more intently on the music. Similarly, is that the sheer vocal power and mastery must be performed at a level that makes up for the lack of overt dramatic content. When done correctly, a concert performance can even surpass its staged counterpart (such as a performance of Das Rheingold with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic this past summer). Often, however, they can stagnate (such as a good many of the Met’s summer performances in Central Park). James Levine has long been a promoter of the arrangement, which allows conductors to assemble dream casts that hardly ever can be realized on stage. In his three-year-old tenure with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine has already presented concert versions of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, Don Giovanni and Elektra. On Saturday night, he brought the BSO to Carnegie for a performance of Bartok’s seldom-heard one-act opera “Bluebeard’s Castle.” It constituted the first half of a program that marked the orchestra’s second visit to New York this season. Levine is to be doubly lauded for bringing with him two singers of unquestionable credentials– the bass Albert Dohmen and the mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter – and for presenting a work that is sure to have scared away the more timid of music-goers.

“Bluebeard’s Castle” boasts chilling libretto by the Hungarian poet and theorist Béla Balåzs, which drips with symbolist language and hauntingly inventive imagery. The enigmatic prologue was delivered by the Hungarian actor Örs Kisfaludy, who popped out from among the harps delivered his introductory poem while walking through the orchestra. Balázs’s detailedstage directions were included with the program notes. Disturbing and minimal, they tantalized the listener. Dohmen, who joined the BSO last Spring for Beethoven’s Ninth, was booming and marvelously textured, ringing out clear amid the full, neo-romantic – and often cacophonous - orchestration. Von Otter, a great Strauss interpreter of Strauss (who was a great influence on Bartok early on), was impassioned and precise, although she struggled to make herself heard amidst the orchestra. What’s more, both singers seemed to have a good command of Hungarian, a language that is poorly represented in the opera repertoire.   
 
The opers’a music is typical of Bartok’s moody, neo-romantic style, although somewhat more grim that audience’s will be accustomed to. The score is a marsh of strange and gripping harmonies, a highly evocative score full of dissonant intervals (minor seconds feature prominently).  Levine had a fine understanding of the emotional drama latent in the score, slowly diffusing the theatrical booms and outcries. The playing was crisp and  methodical. There was an ominous quality to the basses and violas as they leapt and sputtered at and it leapt and sputtered at the unlocking of each door. This is music that can alternatively fizzle out and gear up, put-putting like an engine. Levine’s approach was highly evocative of the opera’s symbolist elements, most obvious in the musical representation of the treasures that lie behind each of the seven doors in Bluebeard’s castle. For a work that is so concerned with self-destructive love and unendurable melancholy, it almost seemed appropriate that the orchestra threatened to regularly to drown the singers.    
 
As if to reward the audience for their indulgence through a difficult and inaccessible work, Levine presented the popular Brahms’ First Symphony after intermission. The notes bled together in the opening bars, which Levine rendered a lush, moody blur. But soon, the Beethovian clarity of Brahms’ orchestration shone through Levine’s more modernist inclinations (perhaps the residual influence of Bartok).    

Levine conducted the first movement with more energy than usual. In the Andante, the oboe theme was rendered particularly poignantly, the faintest of the cellos’ pizzicatos were discernable, while the first violin’s solo was played with appropriate sublimity. In the famous final movement (which directly quotes Beethoven’s Ninth) pensive trombones sounded out their chorale effectively although there was a muddled moment of confusion. Towards the end, Levine grew animated increasingly animated. Leaning off his stool, with one leg on the ground, he brought the monumental work to a shattering close.

Levine shows no signs of giving up concert performances of underplayed operas anytime soon. In February, the BSO will be back at Carnegie for Berlioz’s baffling and complex La Damnation de Faust. This time, minus a popular accompanying symphony.    

 All the attention that’s being lavished on the Metropolitan Opera has the unfortunate effect of dulling the luster of New York City Opera’s season. But those who are frustrated at the lack of tickets for blockbuster sold-out productions like Madama Butterfly and the Barber of Seville (and the upcoming First Emperor) should make stop over at City to check out their inventive season. What you see may surprise you.

City’s production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte boasts a clever concept, fine cast and meticulous musicianship. It’s also a great way to get a fresh perspective on a musical masterpiece often disparaged as a light, frivolous romantic comedy: the 18th century equivalent to a sitcom. City has welcomed back an old friend, the conductor Julius Rudel, the company’s general and musical director for 22 years, to conduct.

The new production by Tim Albery imagines the drama in the confines of an enormous magic lantern. The singers – in period costume – enter and exit via passageways with sliding doors that resemble elevators. Everything else is more or less historically accurate is this simple yet effective staging which highlights the delightful singing of the well-prepared and charming cast, as well as opera’s many layers of frivolity and gravity.

Mozart set Lorenzo da Ponte’s ambiguous libretto – about two brothers who swap paramours to test their lovers’ fidelity – to equally amorphous music.  The plot is full of mistaken identities, ridiculous disguises and fickle affections and the music Mozart uses to convey all this alternates between the elegantly slight and the profoundly human.  

Ryan MacPherson and Kyle Pfortmiller made a great team as the brothers Fernando and Guglielmo and in their Act II solo arias. MacPherson, an earthy tenor who turned out a marvelous Flamand in last season’s tepid production of “Capriccio,” was a little weak in his lower register, but his aria, “Ah, Io veggio,” was suitably forlorn and effective. Pfortmiller impressed with his powerful and elegant baritone, especially in Act 2’s “Donne mie, la fate a tanti.” Rounding out the men was James Maddalena as the scheming Don Alfonso, who sets the whole plot into motion. A sturdy baritone, he projected the avuncular cynicism that the character demands, and turned out the show’s most forceful performance.

The women were likewise well-matched. The soprano Julianna Di Giacomo made a very impressive debut as Fiordiligi, which she sang with effortless grace all the way through. She earned a much-deserved ovation for her poignant forgiveness aria “Per pietà.” Her co-star Sandra Piques Eddy came down sick after a shaky first act. After intermission, she walked the role while an off-stage mezzo replaced her. This made for tricky coordination, especially during love duets. The most delightful performance belonged to Maureen McKay, who sang the maid Despina, McKay is the kind of feisty and assured performer who can take an opera cliché and make it fresh and sensual. Her Despina was fresh, sassy and vocally compelling.

In the pit, Rudel led the musicians in a clear and vibrant reading, marked by strong wind playing and continuo. In these final days of the Mozart 250, there’s no better way to wish the maestro a final happy birthday.

Cosi fan tutte runs for two more performances through November 17th. 

Over 60 years ago Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Lucien Carr met regularly at the West End Bar to discuss literature and philosophy over cheap booze and cigarette smoke. The spirit of the Beat generation was kept alive on a recent Friday night at the revamped watering-hole, which closed its doors at 114th and Broadway amid much contention this summer and quietly reopened late last month. The occasion was the annual “Howl: Jazz and Poetry celebration of Columbia’s Beats,” which drew a large crowd of Columbia students and visitors. The event also unofficially inaugurated the rechristened Havana Central at the West End.

The West End has slaked the thirst of generations of Columbians since it opened in 1911. An old haunt for the Beats who attended Columbia in the 1940s, it was also a hangout for activists during the 1968 student uprising. Though the bar’s ownership has changed throughout its nearly 100 years, it has remained a fixture of the Columbia landscape, seducing students with cheap beer – including its own brew, “Ker O’Whack” – and old world ambiance.  

When the sale of the West End to Havana Central – a Cuban restaurant chain with branches in Midtown and Union Square– was announced last April, many residents and students voiced concern about the bar losing its original character. But the renovated space retains the bar’s original flavor with wooden booths and an uncommonly spacious bar area.

The “Howl” reading was inaugurated in 2004 during the festivities marking Columbia’s 250th anniversary by the Columbia Alumni Association as a corrective to the neglect the Beats had received from a school that preferred to tote its more wholesome respectable alumni. “Enough about Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” explained Jerry Kisslinger, executive director of communications for development and alumni relations at Columbia. “What about Allen Ginsberg?”

A full moon hung in the sky as students and alumni crowded inside and took advantage of the open bar. David Amram, the jazz composer and friend of Kerouac’s played jazz and bop standards with his trio. He reminisced about coming to jam at the West End and feeling the “the high IQ floating through.”

Amram and his trio performed amid the buzz of conversation and clinking of glasses. In the unfinished back room, students read their own poetry aloud and grabbed Cuban fair from the hot buffet.  

Shushing the boisterous crowd proved difficult as the program got underway. Ann Douglas, an expert on the Beats who teaches both “Howl” and “On the Road” as part of her popular Beat Generation seminar, told the noisemakers to quiet down or leave. Selections from “On the Road” were read aloud to Amram’s moody improvisations. Joyce Johnson, one of Kerouac’s former lovers and the author of “Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir,” read about her first date with Jack.

Things were running a bit behind schedule for the reading of Howl. Professor Douglas chanted the last two sections, accompanied by her students, who, dressed in black and scattered among the audience, howled along: “I’m with you in Rockland.”