August poem

  

     Serō^               {fr Days of Mercury}

                               

Wind tide
scarred sometimes
By dust spikes
blinding
pulverized
trajectories exhaled
in coarse flight bolted
bloodier feral heart
iridescent
dodgy
tracks
soars
scape unlocks
as waters trisect
frieze northward
to an invisible gorge
balancé
shimmer
trace^untouched
geo quantum
finally along the promontory

Mercury
at vanishing point
embark
It is all over for now
Iron eyes obliterating
light years
cataloguing the isles of the dead
Hermes  ignites
winged temples to
eclipse the
eternal outlier
blood Venus
unguarded in the
ice basilica
its innards collapsed into
the fevered expanse
a tether
a theory
a twitch
that recalls
thought
but Mercury still dreams
With the
disappeared
Liberated
Reconvened in mighty silence
It is all water music
heard inside
energy concussed
hovers at azimuth
sometimes a dusk reveals
that all his missions had
been vaporized as
Mercury enters the cobalt fury of Olympus

 

& poetries

Chet plays the Mercury L

Before the rain
Tore off
some baleful heart
in private pictures
Of sordid songs
beat to alley footfalls
other shadows
that quit the sounds
in the stolen cornet
A dreamer’s dream
of lost memories
In abandon hotels
hand on that shattered
note

sepia note cards
lipsticks bleeds/one onyx cufflink
silver clips/crushed flasks
discarded jacks/lovers under

blue smoke
faced away

prenatal twins

clutching cold promises
night sweats
in whispers
through a calypso coma

dreams back

Driving red ’55 Alfa

your blonde hair &

silver scarf  catching wind tide
against my neck
& you made me sing’Where or When’
& you cradle my horn/like it was our boy

in your arms & laugh

& kick your shoes out
the window to feel
your arch
to the wind, and my

toes curl around the gas petal

that day somehow became nothing/yes, I pissed you off bad

over the fucking moon bad/cue

thegaddamnmusic, the end.

 

You can’t chase him down
in that torn door
To that empty hall
that lullaby street
our condemned psalm
of sexless escape
shadow in shadow bleu
let the puddles bust open
onto that pocked room
Lapel against the mangled collar
Clinging to fevered hair.
Then he shoots the stars
into that vanquished nirvana

pictures of godless eyes
Of mercury wings
On the wounded heart
Crouched over blue scorched notes
Ash, smack, whiskey, burn, whiskey, more

just whiskey Chet
honey notes flowing’

all over the bed
smothering my trumpet

DanceMetros

Cracking the Nutcrackers

Russian expat George Balanchine choreographed The Nutcracker for New York City Ballet in 1954. Balanchine danced several roles in the ballet at the Maryinsky Theater created by Lev Ivanov’s 1892. He streamlined the story with a mix of neoclassic balletics and pantomime dance for American audiences. The Balanchine artistic trust only permits certain companies permission to dance Balanchine’s Nutcracker and there are plenty of other interpretations that re-imagining the story, some sticking closer to the ballet’s Russian origins.

When The Moscow Ballet’s ‘Great Russian Nutcracker’ swung into Philly for two nights at the Annenberg Center in Philly just nights after the Pennsylvania Ballet’s Balanchine production opened, I thought it would be interesting to compare the choreographic templates, lineage and impact on contemporary audiences.

PB principal Alexander Peters leads the Candy Canes

PB Principals Ian Hussey & Amy Aldridge as Sugar Plum & her Cavalier

PB Corp de Ballet in Snowflake scene

MoscowBallet Arabian Variation Sergey Chumakov & Elena Pretrachenko

MB’s Harlequin scene

Pennsylvania Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker

Academy of Music, Dec. 9-31

Pennsylvania Ballet Artistic Director Angel Corella continues to sharpen the company’s production of George Balanchine’s Nutcracker and since the Balanchine trust keeps tight reins on the few companies that are licensed to perform Mr. B’s, PAB’s attention to the smallest details make all of the difference, dusting off ACT I of ballet, which is can drag on if not fueled with enough performance energy.

Child dancers Claire Smith and Rowan Duffy as siblings Marie and Fritz, Both young dancers have natural stage presence and are strong dancer-actors, a key element in focusing the opening scenes. And this energy extends to all of the children at the Holiday party, which can often look like seasonal pageantry.

Corella is making sure that both the children and adult dancers are defining characters in their pedestrian and gestural movement.

PAB’s new dance master Charles Askgard portrays Herr Drosselmeir, and is a study of detailed pantomime dance. Even Balanchine’s lumbering mouse battle moves swiftly along.

The Act I solos commence when Drosselmeir animates the Harlequin dolls in their cute pointe patterns, but Balanchine saves the fireworks for the toy soldier solo, a precision dance, with precision flatfooted jumps and limb moving in sharp opposite angles- In this performance danced by Peter Weil with haunted eyes executing the drill steps.

After the faux mouse battle, Marie and the Nutcracker Prince are transported to the snowy forest where Snowflakes perform vintage Balanchine choreography full of geometric configurations and requiring tight esprit de corps. At this performance the corps’ ensemble had the pulse but veered off with some blurry unison pacing and scrambled transitions.

Amy Aldridge as the Sugar Plum Fairy among the little angel gliding over the floor to open Act two and Aldridge who has danced this role many times and this performance can be counted as among her most radiant performances.

In the Act II divertissment Lillian DiPiazza smolders as Coffee in the Arabian Dance and Jermel Johnson slices through the air with saber leg splits for Tea. Alexander Peters and his battalion of Candy Canes getting through those hoops with jaunty flair. Making the most of their flash tarantella in the Spanish Dance are newcomers Sterling Baca and Nayara Lopes.

But it was Dayesi Torriente dancing the lead in Marzapan Shepardess that stood out. This is a deceptively simple looking mid-tempo choreography, is actually very tricky and easily scuttled. Balanchine’s counterpoint patterning can loose technical clarity and merely look pretty. In this performance Torriente commanded with thrilling artistry and her Shepardesses- Adrianna deSvastich, Jacqueline Callahan, Yuka Iseda and Ana Calderan, were completely in sync.

The corp de ballet looked sharper than in the Snowflake scene, with precision and attack in Dewdrop Flowers dance. Principal Mayara Pineiro set the highest mark with her fiery lead solo. Pineiro can just hang on point arabesque and her transition steps flawless entrances and exits to diamond centered turns, airy jetes and luminous pointe work.

The finale pas de deux is all Balanchine fireworks and tests the mettle of even the most technically proficient dancers. Aldridge not missing a moment to thrill with her solid technical prowess from every angle. Aldridge and principal dancer Ian Hussey as her Cavalier with palpable chemistry throughout highlighted by their consistent fluency Balanchine’s difficult lift sequences. Hussey’s solos highlighted with centered turns and solid tours en l’air.

It can’t be understated how vibrant conductor Beatrice Jona Affron’s tempos, detailing and orchestral thrust of Tchaikovsky score are key. In Act I, among the outstanding soloists are Luigi Mazzocchi’s violin solo just engulfing the Academy and harpist Mindy Cutcher floating gorgeously crystal strings first as the first snowflake piques on the floor.

Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker

Annenberg Center, Philadelphia

Dec. 12-13

The Moscow Ballet version of the Nutcracker is a more classic Russian version, without doubt and is a choreographic update by the directors after Imperial Ballet period versions by Russian choreographic masters Vaganova, Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.

At the Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker, you pick up right away that the story is much different, with Uncle Drosselmeyer, in a wonderfully danseur lead character part performed by Maksim Bernadskyl. Uncle is Christmas Eve magician who conjures the young girl Masha’s Nutcracker dream escorts us through the whole ballet.

Drosselmeyer Anastasiya Terada is hypnotic in her mechanical moves in a multi-colored ribbon tutu ‘Kissy Doll’ and Konstantin Vinovoy’s Harlequin (the prototype for Balanchine’s Soldier) equally spellbinding. Not transcribed by Balanchine are the Moor Dolls.

Where Balanchine leans heavily on just pantomime and gestural acting to carry Act I, here there is much more dancing including a waltz for the adults, and an officer saber dance.

The Nutcracker Doll & Prince is danced by Mykhailo Syniavskyl throughout (Balanchine turned it into a mostly pantomime role for a young male dancer).

The mice battle is a much more interesting scene, than Balanchine’s limp and comedic version. Here Sergyl Merzlyakov is not a fat cartoon rat, but a scary Rat King in red and black dyed tights stylishly sinister headpiece. The fight choreography has Merzlyakov slicing through the air or in thrilling sword dances with Nutcracker Prince.

Elena Petrichenko and Sergey Chumakov were flash dancing ‘Moor Dolls’ in the first act, but they emerge as virtuoso dance – acrobats to open Act 2 as the Dove of Peace, each with a majestic wing and they cleave together in a series of lifts that keep moving to various symbolic and sculpted positions. Later, the couple appears in an even more dramatic tableau in the Arabian Dance (a lengthier transcription of the Arabian music from Tchaikovsky’s score.)

Balanchine made this a solo dance and one of the highlights of his version for a smoldering solo for a principal ballerina. This has an equally entrancing quality and these two make the most of it.

Balanchine was skimpy on his version of The Spanish Dance even though he has four couples animated in a stylized tarantella, with fancier footwork for the leads pair. Moscow Ballet’s duet for Boris Yastrub and Olga Aru is more interesting in its variation; this couple has wonderful presence and flair in this dance, though their technique flagged.

Moscow Ballet’s ‘Chinese Variation’ (Tea) is much more developed than Balanchine’s flash dance version with glittering repeated phrases. MB’s is much more a character dance, however un-pc with ‘Orientalism.’ Juliya Verian and (stealing the show again) Sergyl Merziyakov’s playful patterns transition steps to technically dazzling double tempo grand pirouette and razor sharp aerial splits.

The reverse is true in The Snowflake ensemble dance at the end of Act I, Moscow’s Snowflakes are exemplar of Russian ballet decorousness, whereas in Balanchine’s turns the heat way up for the Snowflake scene to cap off Act I.

Moscow Ballet’s ‘Russian Variation’ is an expanded Czardas dance with Anton Romashkevych and Anna Bogatyr in traditional Ukrainian dress exuberant in high stepping patterns. Romashkevych in robust barrel rolls and Cossack plies, around Bogatyr, who is twirling like a top. Balanchine turned this into the Candy Canes hoop dance, which is just as effective as a scene, but doesn’t have this folkloric flavor.

Mykhilo Syniavskyi and Veronika Hordina have great chemistry and refinement in the central pas deux that define their characters and unfolds in dramatic finales for both acts.

So Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker has a lot to offer in contrast to Balanchine’s distillation of Russian aesthetics. Even with techniques among this large cast erratic, particularly in the corp de ballet scenes, it should be noted that dance schools and companies in Russia have gone through drastic reduction of state sponsorship over the last 20 years and that is a classic Russian story for another cold winter’s dance night.

BooksBooksBooks

Rediscovering Kerouac

The Library of America’s definitive collections of Jack Kerouac’s writing continue to reveal the full impact of his work on the American literary landscape. In 2012 they published a complete collection of his poetry and have followed up with “The Unknown Kerouac” a volume of previously unpublished private journals and newly translated stories written originally in French-Canadian patios, Kerouac’s first language.

By the 60s Kerouac was decidedly out of the spotlight and admitting his disdain for the “On The Road” myths that clung to him, as well as his image as the leader of the glamorous Beat generation writers. He was much more concerned about being judged on the merits of his entire literary legacy.

“The Unknown Kerouac” goes a long way in revealing the full scope of Kerouac’s artistic ambitions. Editor Todd Tietchen deftly introduces each story in context of Kerouac’s life, and details how some of these early writings anticipate his later, more famous books. Jean-Christophe Cloutier, in his introduction, explains the precision and artistry of translating the patios manuscripts.

Born Jean-Louis Kérouac in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922, Kerouac was the second son Joseph Alcide Leon Kerouac and Gabrielle-Ange Levesque. His parents spoke French at home and Jack did not learn any English until he was five. Kerouac’s brother Gerald died at age ten, and the author wrote about their immutable bond in ‘Visions of Gerald.’

Jean-Louis was a star student and athlete in high school and entered Columbia in 1940, excelling in French and literature courses. He was sidelined in a football accident and a year later he was in US Navy boot camp at Newport, disastrously it turned out, sent psychiatric observation for repeated “insubordination.” During the 40s in New York, Kerouac becomes friends Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, John Holmes, Lucien Carr and other writers and poets of the so called ‘Beat Generation.’

Kerouac’s “Journal 1951″ written during his time at a Veteran’s hospital and a trove of personal he personal journals, full of full of confessionals, poems and musings and is his blueprint for the kind of American writer he wanted to be. His literary heroes included Dostoyevsky, Melville and especially Marcel Proust. Among other things, he formulates his theories of his so called ‘spontaneous’ aesthetic, inspired in part by jazz improvisation.

This volume includes the first time English translations of Kerouac’s novellas ” The Night is My Woman” (‘La Nuit est ma femme’) and “Old Bull in the Bowery” (‘Sur le chemin’). ‘Night’is exemplar of Kerouac sensualist atmospherics and visceral dialogue. “Bull” is his 1952 memoir of the “escapade of mistakes” as it recounts Kerouac and Neal Cassady as kids in 1935 along for the ride with male relatives on a desperate trip in New York. This surreal retelling stylistically is, Kerouac writes Cassady “the solution” to the Road plots.

The altogether astounding “Memory Babe,” written in 1957, is his verite memoir of his family life in Lowell, written in 1957, he summons the 13- year old Kerouac’s “Versailles of the child mind.” Tietchen rightly cites the memoir as part of Kerouac’s “comprehensive literary ethnography” of French-Canadian life of that era “mapping and preserving a lost world.”

“I Wish I Were You” is a noir portrait of his New York contemporaries in the 40s was published posthumously in 2008. It is his first portrait of what Kerouac’s “found” generation of New York Bohemia. Startling in its psychosexual frankness, Kerouac rewrote the 40s version he co-authored with William Burroughs.

This new collection is an essential volume for Kerouac fans, for those who have only read his most famous book; this volume is a chance to rediscover a brilliant writer before, during and after that mythic trip On the Road.

The Unknown Kerouac | RARE, UNPUBLISHED & NEWLY TRANSLATED WRITINGS
Todd Tietchen, editor, Jean-Christophe Cloutier, translator http://www.loa.org

JazzPhilly

Four years ago Painted Bride music curator Lenny Seidman commissioned composers Josh Lawrence, Anwar Marshall and Jason Fraticelli to form a homegrown jazz band for the Painted Bride’s From the Vine series which champions new music. T

he 10-piece Fresh Cut Orchestra was born and hit the ground running and since then they have just recorded three albums and have been playing top venues including Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club. Introducing the band for their Bride return to launch concert for their new CD “Mind Behind Closed Eyes” released late August and already getting heavy play on WRTI, Lawrence told the crowd it was “Great to be home where we started.”

This is a young band has joyous camaraderie and a sense of musical occasion and adventure. For well over two hours they traversed a number of jazz genres, including their prowess that is steeped in big-band legacies.

FCO ignites jazz fusion, created by Miles Davis 45 years ago and mostly out of fashion since. This band weighs in with new compositional structures and ideas with especially aggressive jazz funk/ rock experimentation. They are equally exploratory with Latin jazz and America classicism and all along you get the distinct impression that their artistic prism is not only musically substantive but borderless. One of the connecting themes of this orchestra is that they careen into different jazz genres even in one number and it still makes all musical sense.

Among the random musical highlights on this night

To kick off the concert Jason Fraticelli ambled on stage playing a simple ballade he composed “My Summer in Puerto Rico” on the Cuatro, a four string folk guitar (an heirloom from his musician grandfather). Then drummer Anmar Marshall and percussionist Francois Zayas joins him and eventually, the rest of the band as the song builds to a gushing orchestral stream. Then the electric string percussive jazz rock jam of Fraticelli’s “Mind Behind Closed Eyes” followed by “Gallo Y Gallina” an raucous adaptation of a Puerto Rican folkloric dance tune.

Fresh Cut conjured the jazz ‘cool’ atmospherics of the early 60s on “An Uptown Romance” from their first album “From The Vine” which features Lawrence’s golden tones and lustrous phrasing on muted trumpet that hands off to Brian Marsella solo on piano goes stride blues territory and at several points with electric segues on his Rhodes keyboard. Later, on Lawrence shows equal compositional range with his Latin tune “Frederico,” a rowdy horn and percussion salsa laced with Marsella’s delirious piano runs and Mark Allen’s lusty baritone sax.

The first set concluded with Anwar Marshall’s compositions “Indecision” and “New Expectations” also from “Mind Behind Closed Eyes” Marshall fires the rhythmic engine with Zayas and Marsella into a dynamic matrix of sound.

Meanwhile, Lawrence leads the horns- Mike Cemprola (alto sax) and Mark Allen (baritone sax), Brent White (trombone) and all a four players at various times in fiery exchanges, their combined chemistry one of the defining qualities of this orchestra.
In the second half of the concert guitarist Tim Conley (originally from the West Coast) commands on electric bass, when he isn’t unleashing sonic effects on his laptop, which has been dubbed ‘Starship.’

The orchestra was invited to perform at the Sinatra Centennial event at Lincoln Center last year and Lawrence said they performed Sinatra’s standard “It Was a Very Good Year” because it embodied Frank’s vocal artistry. The opening orchestral lushness gives way to an intimacy (ala Sinatra) but then Frank’s voice is heard in a voiceover joking about growing up a skinny kid in his family’s 5th floor walkup in Hoboken. Conley then distorts this shtick with Starship effects, and then he blasts off into acid jazz guitar riff worthy of Monterey circa ’67. Wonder what Sinatra would have said about this version- bet ‘New York, New York’ Sinatra would have hated it, but big-band sousy Frank would have loved the ride. Meanwhile, the Bride crowd was enthralled.

Lawrence then announced that the concert closer would be a piece they had recorded the day before call “Life Mosaic” a piece jointly composed by Lawrence, Fraticelli, Marshall and Conley. The work previewed two years ago at the Kimmel Center’s jazz residency programming and it sounds like a signature piece already. It is a sprawling, four-movement piece, with each musician weighing in and the full effect closer to a concerto for full jazz orchestra.

A great night of jazz and another auspicious sign that the Philadelphia is doing more than reclaiming its great jazz history, but investing in a jazz renaissance which seems to be in full vanguard swing.

For future dates & album links check <a href=”http://www.freshcutorchestra.com/&#8221; target=”_hplink”>http://www.freshcutorchestra.com/</a&gt;

fr Right before I met Vincent

endlessly, from last night

the pulse
blue echo

the concussive
murmurings

earlier
spying my belly button
in a drawer
with shredded  biker socks
at 7:40 molting

rusty whispers
from vodka-quaalude
on geometric bodyink

out of mind so
lusting off
to eternity
the trail of clothes
ending in a
glitteringly butch
shadows
dreamt of once before

now hover in
diamond movement of
à l’après-midi d’un faune
Angling over a
busted wall
-when did you
share me
with candy-
from the other club last night
it is time to go out to dance, no?
is it still 3:20
1972 drenched
In sex forgotten in a flash with  all the
beautiful ones inhabiting the
GalleriaAtlantis
busted open in the rumbling
strata of
anonymous  and so liberated from any former crime
but the faith of knowing we
we are giving our bodies to each
other, unlost
A sane human havoc
sounds of falling onyx
and crystals
dripping
on marble
crack below on
Leaves
scrapping branches
mercury running through
Fingers onto
the temples
we hear
sonic psalms
La la la Sacre du Printemps
to escape the sound
Of the blood pulsing together

inside a
Coldest room
waiting for scarred
voices down here, below
Flamingo tangerine fucshia
Dahlia darling ascending
soul & sugar
Paul&Assotto
Larry&Paul
Keith&Timmy&

Ted&Pearl&

SarahVaughan&Joey&Christopher
Georgio&Alberto&JohnAnthony&Michael&Marcel&Menage&PeterMiguelJimmy

Andywasthereoncewethink
et. fuckin’ al. baby
nobody walked away
empty hearted
the corners
of the rooms folded up
not inside shadow
on bluer shadow
pulsing resonance
concussive dissonance
as the body starburst
endlessly through that smashed atom
still dancing with Shiva we dance for you&we dance for with you perpetuo molto

on ink-night beholden to our rainbow warriors
so mighty real

Delphinium a gay garden May 2000 (revisited)

Delphinium ~ a gay garden, revisited
May 2000

‘Till the shadows
on his past
In a separate garden.

Except that we were
laughing
they too
were full silhouettes

in bloom

& not to bother

to intrude on mindless
heads thrown back for
That late brunch
sun mocking itself
meanwhile
a frond noir
Tricking the eye into
Thinking that it is

reseeing a day of youth
the shade of shadows
in shadows
we don’t really remember
even 20 years ago before

the last fall
When everyone was
subsumed
vortex
justanothermonster
million-rooted blood hydra
just another monster
to be melted

who were we but
all of us

to be still here

on this day buried
behind black purple
Siberian irises
splashed with cheap mimosas
or aubergine

sweated morning glories
all flora

staying out for a long
nevermore luxuriant

Lurching
fox gloves
slap each

other with tired lilies
forgetting a century
of black Pagliaci tears)

Spilled over lips
With winds swirls
making us blink vs
red or violet afterburns
to champagne
pink fade
blades
running
once,
leaves of grass
swat and sway
all afternoon
Trying to dance against
the lazy chorus of chive hammers
the entrada of
blurviolet organza
brushing by
Spiked feathers
Tripped over bowl of clover
Whispered over
villainous amaryllis

accidental
camaraderie
loitering
With such beautiful intent

Snapdragons in
snarky venereal poses
Under arc of skid row
rails repopulated with lilac clematis
(ear-ringed, dreadlocked)
And Camille

ignores

enough to
Descend.
On neon Medusa

granite dragon
ignored
unbloomed with doubt
certain of the galaxy
chrysanthemum
if it survives
Root map of the ants
cotillion next door to
The red speck-flies
Amok on mauve silk belles
willow

spiraled in
gnarled beauty
because of the early heat
and forget-me-nots
lost on other endless afternoons
the amber showdown
vaporized our outfits
reassemble from last
night
unforced bloomed
in the twilight

of blue roses
we’ve never

knew the worse

The lovers gone
Friends silenced
out of the
heroic sea
of unwanted souls
What we
were once
& need to be again
Will always be

kept like the
Ghosts of the gardens at Versailles.
Those forgotten blooms
still lost in someone else’s time

no we did not
remember promises not to
fall in love
Have sex
Not to cheat on our lovers
Or press leaves between
The pages of the pact that
We are finally
loving witness for each other
that is our sanctified root
the perpetual motion

on this last day

So the light changed
there is laughter
same larkspur
flying out of Troy
To drown out
cry for the next rain
soaring in this
dank metropolis
so supple
so fetid sometimes
she soars
in the field of
Delphinium

So instead do not
turn our back
On the blinded warriors
going back in
to say goodbye
unforeshadowed

Queens of the Garden

(For Jack & those beautiful men gathered

May 2000)

 

 

annual revisit & some replanting to Delphinium, A Gay Garden

from Gyroscopes

From Gyroscopes  (appendix)

The NYTimes 4.25.2016 reports that

……………..half of which includes “candidate phyla radiation” that are still waiting to be discovered. Humans are in the bottom branch of eukaryotes…

 

 

 

Overundersidewaysdown

Eukaryotes the gods

Through smashing logic

mirrors to obliterata

I reckon for the bottom of the ocean

Not a glimpse or                                        word will be revealed l

vaporized on our way

So the creatures stay undernorth or

don’t acknowledge heavenward

fly unsidedownoverandover

to reckon the bottom of

The oceanic

There is a clue that

A million blood tongue hydra sleeps

For now gurgles

In a cell

& in a parallel spiral

Throwing the dice into to a new black hole

chains of lifeforms, devolved sobriquets

unvoided              reheard                            randomly swallowed

fucking     unvoidedly

ibidibidibid- randomly time reveals the next

occurrence of

confirmed reality when  Igor unleashes Le Sacre

Cocteau smokes Beauty and the Beast

Isadora materializes through the trees of Moscow

Renaldo escapes in the ocean to write in water for all eternity

in beautiful unknown realness

The infinite if                when moments are not

so  we start to create

World of Music

Yannick celebrates backstage with a Citation from Mayor Michael Nutter & the announcement that he is Musical America’s Artist of the Year (photo courtesy of Philadelphia Orchestra FB)

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Yannick Nezet-Seguin, conductor
Hilary Hahn, violin
The Firebird

In late Noveember, Conductor Gianandrea Noseda kept the Philadelphia Orchestra warm with two weeks of programming of Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and most intriguingly, the US premiere of Alfred Casella’s Symphony No. 4, 106 years after he wrote it.  Phil Orch musical director Yannick Nezet-Seguin returned early December to put his imprimatur on some rare French repertoire and Igor Stravinsky’s complete ballet score to The Firebird.

Nezet-Seguin’s opened the concert with Georges Bizet’s Carmen Suite in an altogether anemic reduction by Fritz Hoffman composed in the 1990s. Nezet-Seguin leans on the Toreador fanfares to ignite it, but otherwise the orchestra sounding rote with this dimensionless paste-up.

Perhaps all attention was focused on French composer Henri Vieuxtemps rarely performed Violin Concerto No. 4, a fascinating and challenging rarity composed in 1849-50, with classical-romantic atmospherics and but violin solos that anticipate modernist, experimental lines. You can see its appeal for soloist Hilary Hahn.

The first movement has a lengthy and static orchestral opening before the violin makes its vertiginous, her tone sonorous and reserved. Hahn brings her full artistry, eventually, to the lengthy piece.

Hahn is not just in her own soloist zone; she sways to the orchestrals and turns toward the other players, the interlocks with the orchestra building the theatricality of the piece. At times Hahn is passionately technical, and even with gorgeous, resonate tone and bow and bridge dexterity in the 3rd raucous solo movement, and Hahn’s essaying its Vieuxtemps’ fiery temperament in the long, staccato lines, yet still sounding like a gypsy fiddler of in this symphonic template.

Nezet-Seguin kept the edge to Stravinsky’s La Sacre du Printemps at its most lush earthy atmosphere that careened into its most savage dimension. The recording with the Philadelphians 2013 for Deutsche Grammophon deservedly became a bestselling classical album and won a Grammy.

The atmospherics he brings to La Sacre, he has also applied to The Firebird, but the result is different. The complete ballet score is actually a rarity in the concert hall, with most orchestras opting for the Firebird Suite and for good reason.

The complete ballet score has less of a forward thrust in its collaborative element for the ballet stage, is stellar Stravinsky, without doubt, but the flight of the firebird is the main attraction, and Stravinsky is also providing support to the action onstage, akin to what a film composer does, so Firebird has essentially musical divertissement for the choreography.

In the concert hall all this reads as a lot of symphonic foreplay, interrupted with fanfares, the dynamic contrasts get tired mid-way though and in this performance sounding under glass. Still, there was outstanding playing among the soloists, even within its lackluster cohesive musical arc.

The woodwinds, especially, a rescuing band- among the stellar line-up igniting the Firebird- Jeffrey Khaner flute, Daniel Matsukawa, bassoon, Ricardo Morales, clarinet. At the cool end, that trio of Harps, led by Elizabeth Hainen, proved nothing less than lustrous. David Bilger leading the brass into the crescendo, matched with penetrating clarity by premier French hornist Jennifer Montone.

Nezet-Seguin was having a great week otherwise. He was named Music America’s Artist of the Year, and the announcement was made in Philly, along with a special Citation from Philly Mayor Nutter for the occasion, then the official presentation of the award in Carnegie Hall the following day. Days later, maestro Yan also picked up 2015 Grammy nominations for his Deutsch Grammophon recording of the the Fab Phil’s Rachmaninoff Variations conducting 24 year old Russian superstar pianist Daniil Trifanov.

Stage

 

bass-baritone Daniel Noyola as the dastardly Don serenading his next conquest. (photo courtesy AVA)

Academy of Vocal Arts
Don Giovanni
By W.A.Mozart
Directed by Jeffrey Buchman
Conducted by Christofer Macatsoris
Philadelphia
AVA’s Helen Corning Warden Theater & area venues
Nov. 7-21
http://www.avaopera.org

The Academy of Vocal Arts’ mounts Mozart’s Don Giovanni every few years and it always seems to show them at their best. Their 2011 production, directed by the Tito Capobianco, and had the lusty Don Giovanni, in flagrante delicate all during the overture in just his breeches as he pretends to be Donna Anna’s fiancé Octavio. In their current production, director Jeffrey Buchman chose to be more discreet until later, but all of the lustiness was rendered by the orchestra alone in maestro Christofer Macatsoris vibrant interpretation conjures nothing less than glorious Mozart.
Macatsoris accents the darker themes right, the clamor of the first scene, an attempted rape and a death, seemed a bit too clamorously paced. When Donna Anna discovers the ruse and her father the Commendatore comes on the scene to challenge Giovanni to a duel. And Octavio, who resembles Giovanni, adding to the confusion as DG and Leporello steal away.
Meanwhile, Elvira, just jilted by Giovanni, chases him in anguish, but realizes what a philandering cur he is, after Leporello shows her the log of his many trysts (1003 in Spain alone). While nearby, Giovanni happens on the wedding of Zerlina and Masetto. He lures the party to his, and seduces the bride right under Maestro jealous nose.
The mob turns on him, but not before he sets off on a new round of dalliances and deceptions. He tries to win Elvira back by having Leporello stand in for him while she pines on her balcony. It’s all a ruse though to throw his pursuers off his scent. Things come to a head as he hides in the graveyard and the specter of the Commendatore gets his revenge on the doomed Giovanni.
The opera is a great barometer of AVA’s roster of singers in its vocal demands and to test their acting chops with equal parts drama and comedy. Soprano Vanessa Vasquez’s Donna Anna and her fiancé Octavio, sung by tenor Jonas Hacker have charming low-key chemistry in their scenes together, but it is in their solos toward the end that they triumph. Hacker nails the lengthy sung soliloquy in the final act. Two breakout performances by baritone Jorge Espino and mezzo-soprano Allegra Di Vita as Masetto and Zerlina. Espino conveying his jealousy with humorous gravitas. Di Vita so vocally powerful and a fine comic actress playing a gorgeous flirt.
Stellar performance by Anush Avetisyan as Elvira. She conveys every emotion as she goes from rage against Don Gio to giving in to his charms. Bass-baritones Andre Courville and Daniel Nayola as Leperello and Don Giovanni, sustain balance, and vocal clarity, with sardonic wit, in two of the most demanding vocal roles in all of opera. And the chilling finale of the stony presence out of the graveyard to exact Don Giovanni’s mortal damnation is sung with engulfing basso gravitas by Anthony Schneider.
Director Buchman opening scenes could use some streamlining, but he keeps the cast in motion throughout and uses the tight space at the Warden Theater to maximum effect. Peter Harrison’s set of modular grey panels frame Val Starr costume design of velvet doublets, plumed hats and breeches on the men and Versailles gowns on the women, seems in moments like an animated Renaissance painting.
Macatsoris’ and the AVA orchestra is a separate review and the intimate AVA Helen Corning Warden Theater a perfect venue to hear this orchestra’s dimension and detailing. Among the standout players’, the harpsichord continuo by Richard A Raub and first violin lines of Igor Szwec, essaying lustrous Mozart. Not to mention the voluptuous counterpoint lower strings by cellists Vivian Barton Dozor and Lynee Beiler.