Ron Bierman - Page 6

The San Diego Opera's production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro featured expressive singing, clever attractive sets, beautiful costumes, and strong comedic and dramatic acting. The work is generally called a comic opera, but as director Stephen Lawless pointed out during my interview with him, 'There are tears behind the laughter.' The difficult political and social issues hiding behind laughter came from the Beaumarchais play on which the opera was based, and Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte had to make light of them or risk censorship. The play's depiction of royal abuses probably contributed to the start of the French Revolution. Napoleon went so far as to say the it was, 'the Revolution already put into action.'

The first program in the San Diego Symphony's 2018-19 Jacobs Masterworks series featured conductor Edo de Waart and pianist Joyce Yang. So did the second, and that's far from a complaint. Three or four more from them this season would be fine with me. The concert format was also unchanged from week one: a contemporary orchestral work to begin, followed by a Romantic-Era piece for piano and orchestra, and concluding with a Classical symphony. The composers this time were Mason Bates, Rachmaninoff and Mozart.

Stephen Lawless will be directing the San Diego Opera's production of The Marriage of Figaro this week. I met with him in the opera company's rehearsal room recently to discuss that, how he came to be a director, and his views of a director's responsibilities.

The first concert in the San Diego Symphony's 2018-19 Jacobs Masterworks series included oft-returning guest conductor Edo de Waart and pianist Joyce Yang. The program consisted of Nocturne by contemporary composer Michael Ippolito which was premiered in 2012, and two familiar works, Grieg's piano concerto and Beethoven's 7th symphony. In a pre-concert interview with Nuvi Mehti, Ippolito explained that Nocturne was inspired by Joan Miro's 1940 painting of the same name. Diverse musical influences include Chopin, Debussy, John Field, and the 'night music' of Bartok.

Pianist Lang Lang all but disappeared from the concert stage late last year while recovering from an arm injury caused by intensely rushed practice of Ravel's concerto for left hand only. Now back touring, he was the main draw for the opening of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra's 2018-19 season. His performance proved all is well and why he is one of the few superstar classical-music attractions. With less flamboyance, conductor Edo de Waart confirmed his formidable international reputation is also deserved, and the orchestra responded with passion to his authoritative direction.

The Welk Resort Theatre's production of Mamma Mia is a cheerful high energy entertainment, a worthy example of why the musical has been a favorite of many dozens of production companies around the world since its 1999 London premiere. The story is set on the Greek island of Kalokairi where we learn that Sophie, a 20-year-old bride-to-be, doesn't know who her father is. She's secretly read in her mother Donna's diary that it must be one of three men Donna had brief affairs with 20 years ago. Determined to find out which one it is, Sophie has invited them to her wedding without telling her mother.

The cannons boomed, bells rang, and spectacular multicolored fireworks exploded overhead as the SDSU Aztec marching band, including eight tubas, joined the San Diego Symphony to celebrate Russia's victory over Napoleon! Tchaikovsky would have been delighted, though probably secretly so since he said he loathed the piece. He also might have been a bit puzzled about a performance more than a century after his death 6,000 miles away from Moscow. I doubt he envisioned the overture as a mainstay of summer pop-season finales with cool summer breezes wafting in from a bay on the Pacific Ocean. but unjaded classical-music fans delight in the tradition.

Nostalgic fans mobbed the San Diego Symphony's Four Tops and Temptations concert. Tables, stands and lawn were packed. Ticketless fans settled in spots outside the entrance, joining boats in the bay in listening to music that had created lasting memories. Tunes you hear growing up never leave you. You can tell how old someone is by asking which radio station they listen to. 'The one that plays oldies from the 60s,' is a good indicator, even if La Jolla's excellent plastic surgeons have intervened. Fond memories are why Motown vocal groups and 'ghost' bands from the Swing Era still attract enthusiastic audiences.

In 1962 West Side Story won 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Musical. Is it still worth seeing more than half a century later? Sure is! Jerome Robbins' energetic choreography remains riveting, and Leonard Bernstein's marvelous score is a perfect frame for Sondheim's affecting lyrics. A live performance of its musical soundtrack by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra gave the film an even greater impact. The dances seemed that much more energetic and exciting, and the closing Romeo and Juliet-like death scene more wrenchingly emotional. I don't think I've ever before heard more audible signs of a movie audience trying to repress tears.

'Carnival,' the opening concert in Cho-Liang Lin's last season as music director of the La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest, was an unusual jumble of works. Bartok's Contrasts for clarinet, piano and violin was written for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman. It is based on Hungarian and Romanian folk dance and, though composed 80 years ago, includes bitonality that still imparts an edgy 'modern' flavor. Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras suites for eight cellos and soprano were written to honor Bach with Brazilian-influenced melodies and rhythms. And Saint-Saens wrote Carnival of the Animals, a work for 11 instruments, on a lark. He refused to publish it during his lifetime, thinking it would detract from his reputation as a 'serious' composer.

The San Diego Symphony's 2018 Bayside Jazz Series continued with 'Godfathers of Latin Jazz,' a concert inspired by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's merger of bebop and Afro-Cuban rhythms. Dizzy had wanted something new for a 1947 Carnegie Hall concert, 'One of those tom toms' he said, thinking of the different hand-struck drums played by Latin percussionist Machito and others. To get the effect he wanted he added Cuban conguero Chano Pozo.

Arturo Sandoval is best known as a Latin trumpeter. But at their San Diego Bayside Jazz performance, his sextet displayed exceptional versatility. At tempos from ballad-slow to escape velocity, they rocked the waterfront with Latin, bop, funk and even a little metal rock. Sandoval, in addition to trumpet, played flugelhorn, keyboards, and timbales, with a few vocals and a lot of clowning around thrown in.

It's a marriage committed to musical excellence. Jazz trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos says of his wife Lorraine, 'She's a classically trained guitarist, and her practice can be intimidating at times.' That helps motivate him to practice more, usually four or five hours a day. But she has said, his practicing inspires her to practice more because she feels guilty if she doesn't. Fortunately for the couple, and perhaps the neighbors, they both have successful careers that prevent them from escalating into a friendly, but potentially fatal, competition.

Thamos, King of Egypt,  a play by Tobias Philipp, baron von Gebler, premiered in 1774. Mozart completed incidental music for it, the 18th Century equivalent of a movie soundtrack, in 1780. Before Mainly Mozart's performance of a concert version of the play, conductor Michael Francis, with a typically mischievous smile, said the original with Mozart's music would make for a really boring four hours. Mozart supported that view in a letter to his father saying he couldn't use the music he'd written because the play had failed. Francis and director Cynthia Stokes solved the problem by slashing the baron's text to a farcical smidgen while leaving Mozart's music intact. The result clocked in at less than an hour.

Every year since 1989 Mainly Mozart has been bringing many of the best orchestra musicians in the country to San Diego to perform a month-long series of concerts ranging from solo recitals to orchestral. When Michael Francis succeeded founding music director and conductor David Atherton in 2015 he reemphasized the organization's name by planning a six-year chronological traversal of Mozart's music. The first-year featured Mozart as prodigy. This year, the third, Mozart is a 'rebel' breaking ranks with the music establishment and the control of his father Leopold.

Conductor Edo de Waart opened the last concert in the San Diego Symphony Orchestra's 2017-18 Jacobs Masterworks series with Overture to Candide. The overture has been perhaps Leonard Bernstein's most frequently programmed work during this, his centennial year. The cheeky, riotous piece is always taken at a brisk pace and sometimes, as in this performance, to the very edge of control. De Waart studied with Bernstein, and his interpretation was consistent with the composer's own. While the orchestra played well, the performance did miss a bit of potential unbuttoned fun.

The San Diego Opera's last concert this season was billed as 'One Amazing Night.' The program was originally scheduled to feature soprano Lise Lindstrom and tenor Rene Barbera, but Barbera was released from his commitment when he was offered a Teatro alla Scala debut as Ernesto in a new production of Don Pasquale. He's sung multiple time in San Diego, and will likely return, but the company understood a La Scala debut means too much to an opera singer's career to stand in his way. Bass-baritone Greer Grimsley, who had previously performed with Lindstrom in the San Diego production of Salome, was an effective stand-in. Earlier this season Grimsley played the pirate king here in Pirates of Penzance with surprising comic flair, though best known for dark and heroic roles.

The San Diego Symphony, along with many others, is this year celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein. The first half of the Symphony's 'Dances Suites and Serenades' concert consisted of 'Three Dance Variations' from Bernstein's ballet Fancy Free, and Serenade (After Plato's 'Symposium'). Fancy Free was choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins collaborated on all of Bernstein's ballets and his hugely successful Broadway musical Westside Story. Fancy Free features three sailors on leave who want to impress two young women. Since two doesn't equal three, except possibly in fake-news reports, they  dance to showoff and help the women decide which two suitors will win approval. Galop, waltz and danzon variations provide solos for each sailor in which to demonstrate skill and personality.

It was good to see Maestro Jahja Ling return to San Diego as Conductor Laureate while we await the arrival next year of his replacement as Music Director Rafael Payare. Nor did Ling disappoint. He seemed totally absorbed in the music produced by the orchestra he was largely responsible for rebuilding. The concert opened with 'Times Square: 1944' from the score of Bernstein's first Broadway show, On the Town. Ling, a Leonard Bernstein protege, bounced jauntily, swayed and nearly jitterbugged as he led the orchestra in the piece's changing moods. Freelancers alto saxophonist Mark Shannon and clarinetist Juan Gallegos added a touch of big-band jazz to nail the jazzy Broadway vibe.

The San Diego Symphony's season continued this past weekend with guest pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane. He opened at the piano in front of an orchestra reduced to half its usual size for Mozart's 27th piano concerto. After intermission there were roughly twice as many musicians for Samuel Barber's tone poem Music for a Scene from Shelley and Schumann's third symphony, the 'Rhenish.' Regardless of orchestra size or whether at the piano or podium, Kahane conducted with smooth sweeping gestures, and the orchestra responded well with clear section balances and attention to detail.