MEMBER SIGN IN
Not a member? Become one today!
         iBerkshires     Southern Berkshire Chamber     Lee Chamber     Lenox Chamber     Berkshire Community College    
Search
Tanglewood, Manchester and Glimmerglass Are Not to be Missed
01:55PM / Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Print | Email  

Mary Beth Nelson as Betty Parris, Ariana Wehr as Abigail Williams, Emma Grimsley as Ruth Putnam and Molly Jane Hill as Susanna Walcott are featured in The Glimmerglass Festival's production of Robert Ward's 'The Crucible.' (Photo by Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival)

This week, Tanglewood continues its high energy 2016 classical programming season with a powerhouse, back-to-back pair of programs performed by the Boston Pops and guest artists the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

The "heavy hitters" are John Williams' "Film Night" – always an audience favorite and a high point of each year's Tanglewood offerings, and a unique concert by a visiting ensemble of intrepid Australians that replicates a 1920s-era Weimar Republic quasi-pops cabaret experience. What a pair! This is not your staid classical programming. Be there or be square.

Traditional Tanglewood listeners: not to fear; classical fare won't be lacking: Mozart, Debussy, Ravel, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky ("The Rite of Spring") performed by the Boston Symphony and the youthfully invigorated Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra will also be performed.

For still more options, head to Manchester, Vt., for – like last week - no less than three (!) diverse musical offerings presented by the Manchester Music Festival.

 

Tanglewood

• Friday, Aug. 12, 2:30 p.m. in the Shed: Swiss maestro Charles Dutoit, one of the Boston Symphony's most popular guest conductors since his debut with the orchestra in 1981, conducts his first performance of the season as Tanglewood's 2016 Koussevitzky Artist, an honorary title reflecting the BSO's deep appreciation for his generous commitment to Tanglewood and for his extraordinary 30-plus-year dedication to the BSO at Tanglewood, in Boston, and on the orchestra's 2014 tour to China and Japan.

The program opens with the overture to Otto Nicolai's charming operetta "The Merry Wives of Windsor." Following the overture is Mozart's affectionate Piano Concerto No. 22, a personal favorite of American pianist and annual Tanglewood guest artist Emanuel Ax. Maestro Dutoit also leads the BSO in Debussy's miraculous "La Mer" and Ravel's spellbinding "Bolero" - music which Maestro Dutoit is a foremost interpreter, and which has a special place in the BSO repertoire.

• Saturday, Aug. 13, 8 p.m. in the Shed, John Williams' Film Night: A beloved summer tradition this evening with featuring conductors John Williams and Richard Kaufman leading the Boston Pops Orchestra. John Williams' "Film Night" has long been established as one of the Tanglewood calendar's most consistently anticipated evenings. The second half of the concert will feature John Williams leading the Pops in the unforgettable themes he composed for "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," as well as "Rey's Theme" and "The Jedi Steps and Finale" from the franchise's latest film, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." For the first half of the program, Richard Kaufman leads music from iconic cinematic flight sequences — with music from movies including "Hook," "Out of Africa," "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and "Superman."

• Sunday, Aug. 14, 2:30 p.m. in the Shed: German conductor David Afkham and Russian-German pianist Igor Levit both make their Boston Symphony Orchestra debuts in this program of Beethoven and Schumann. Mr. Afkham leads the BSO in Beethoven's dramatic, foreboding "Coriolan" Overture, written for Heinrich Joseph von Collin's 1804 play, as well as Schumann's ambitious and innovative Symphony No. 4, a lyrically powerful work that is played continuously throughout all four movements. Mr. Levit performs Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, the stormiest of the composer's five essays in the genre, as the centerpiece of this program.

• Sunday, Aug. 14, 8:30 p.m. in Ozawa Hall: Barry Humphries, one of Australia's greatest entertainers, best known to audiences around the world in the persona of Dame Edna Everage, curates, presents, and performs in "Barry Humphries' Weimar Cabaret," with the Australian Chamber Orchestra led by Music Director and violinist Richard Tognetti. The concert, directed by Rodney Fisher, features music popular during Berlin's Weimar Republic (1920s–1930s) – all in a variety of then-current styles: jazz, cabaret, tango, and the Broadway musical. The hedonistic partying and social revolution of this era is re-awakened in this full-throttle concert, featuring risqué cabaret sensation "Meow Meow" in the racier numbers, as well as in songs by composers Kurt Weill, Ernst Krenek, Erwin Schulhoff, Ernst Toch and others.

• Monday, Aug. 15, 8 p.m. in Ozawa Hall: Maestro Dutoit takes the podium once again, this time to lead the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, with soloist Gil Shaham. This Concerto, one of the most popular for the instrument, overflows with melody and emotion to delight the listener, while also calling for the utmost technical difficulties to challenge the soloist. Also on the program are Igor Stravinsky's revolutionary ballet score "The Rite of Spring," which still has the power to stun audiences with its fearsome energy, and Zoltan Kodály's "Dances of Galánta," which transmogrifies traditional Hungarian music into a rollicking orchestral suite alternatively poetic and frenetic.

Tickets for all Tanglewood events can be purchased online, via SymphonyCharge, 888-266-1200 or 888-266-1200, and at the Tanglewood box office located at the main gate, on West Street in Lenox. For further information call 413-637-1600.

 

Manchester Music Festival

The amazingly musically diversified Manchester Music Festival presents three upcoming events this week, with, as always, something for music lovers of all ages.

• Thursday, Aug. 11, 7:30 p.m. at Southern Vermont Arts Center: "Voices Together – An Orchestral Experience": A stunning orchestral/choral program by the Manchester Festival Orchestra, led by Maestro Ariel Rudiakov, conductor, and featuring violinist Stefan Milenkovich, with a special appearance by the Manchester Community Chorus, Linda Hueckel, Director. The program will include "Sancta Maria, Mater Dei," K. 273 and "Ave Verum Corpus," K. 618 – both by Mozart. Also on the program is Samuel Barber's supremely lyrical Violin Concerto, composed in 1939.

• Sunday, Aug. 14, 3 p.m. at the Festival House, featuring violinist Stefan Milenkovich: This master class will be a truly unique experience. Two of MMF's Young Artist ensembles will each perform a movement of a chamber work. Mr. Milenkovich will then analyze the performance and take the groups through various sections of the pieces, offering constructive criticism and observations. This will be held at 2 Dillingham Ave., Manchester Center, Vt.

• Monday, Aug. 15, 7 p.m., Young Artists Concert: This concert will present chamber music performed by participants of the MMF's Young Artists Program, coached by resident MMF faculty with commentary by the musicians. This will be held at Burr and Burton Academy's Riley Center for the Arts, 57 Seminary Ave., Manchester, Vt. Admission is $10 for adults and free for students and children.

For tickets and complete information, visit the Manchester Music Festival’s website or contact the MMF by phone 802-362-1956.

 

Glimmerglass Festival: 'The Crucible'

The Glimmerglass Festival performance I recently saw and heard of the Robert Ward opera, "The Crucible," composed in 1961, was thrilling. The opera is based upon the chilling play by Arthur Miller, written in 1953 by Miller in reaction to the "Red Scare" tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities. An analogue to those dreaded days and to the paranoid mindset of the post-War era in which fear of unconformity, suspicion and faux-patriotism are co-mingled, the play stands for its time as an iconic document warning us to never forget what hysteria and intolerance can do to individuals and to society at large. Ward's opera brilliantly reminds us, as a cautionary tale, of what we, even now, are in danger of losing.

Musically, the score is post-Romantic and is full of melody. The gifted young Glimmerglass singers are uniformly outstanding. Their passionate singing and acting conveys the tragic depths of the story with total conviction.

I strongly recommend the production as a dramatic experience. The listener/viewer is thrust into the action from the beginning to the story's harrowing end. It's a beautifully mounted production, simply but effectively staged, that is in tune with the stark energy of the play. The opera, which is entirely faithful to Miller's vision, carries the horror to entirely another level.

"The Crucible" will be presented four more times: Aug. 14 (matinee), 18, 20 (matinee) and 27 (matinee).

The Alice Busch Opera Theatre's casual elegance, beautiful surroundings and excellent acoustics provide an intimate, one-of-a-kind operatic encounter. All of the theater's 914 seats are less than 70 feet from the stage, and every production utilizes supertitles in English projected above the stage, which is a welcome aid to the audience in understanding the sung text.

Glimmerglass tickets for single or group performances or by subscription can be purchased at the box office at the theater or at 18 Chestnut Street in center Cooperstown. For telephone orders, call the box office at 607- 547-2255. For more information, visit online.

 

0Comments
More Featured Stories
SouthBerkshires.com is owned and operated by: Boxcar Media 102 Main Sreet, North Adams, MA 01247 -- T. 413-663-3384
© 2024 Boxcar Media LLC - All rights reserved