Berkshire Review for the Arts

The New Berkshire Review for the Arts is launched

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:17:18 -0400

Welcome to the new Berkshire Review for the Arts, which will be easier and more fun to browse, and, on our end, considerably streamlined. You'll now be able to comment on almost every posting, and there is not longer any reason for the Berkshire Artsblog. Its entries have been absorbed into the relevant categories, above all "Commentary." I believe I've checked almost everything, but I'll also ask you to be patient with any remaining bugs and inconsistencies. If you find any please contact me by e-mail. Any criticisms and comments are also welcome. A small number of the articles have been transferred from the old site. It will take some time to transfer the rest, as we move forward. Meanwhile, the old site will be maintained as an archive, accessible through links in the left sidebar and the footer.

Brasserie Jo Boston in the Colonnade Hotel

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:24:37 -0400

Years ago it was pretty much unthinkable to dine after an evening concert in Symphony Hall, unless you happened to find a Hayes Bickford that was open all night. It’s still not easy to find a place where you could relax and converse for a couple of hours without feeling rushed, much less being surrounded by floor sweeping, the overturning of chairs, and a glaring waiter. I do know a few places in the neighborhood that are open late, but I wouldn’t recommend them. Brasserie Jo, however, is one restaurant—a five minute walk away—where I’d feel comfortable settling in after a concert. The main menu remains available until 11 pm Monday through Saturday, and a bar menu takes over until 1.30 am. It’s also worth noting that lunch is served until 3 pm—a small blessing for us tardy folk and busy guests in the Colonnade Hotel.

Mozart/Da Ponte, Le Nozze di Figaro, the debut of the Capital Opera Company, Albany

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:27:55 -0400

Last August, tipped off by friends of the always-remarkable Richard Giarusso, I ventured up to Cambridge, New York, to hear him conduct Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte at Hubbard Hall, a nineteenth-century “opera house,” which has seen many vicissitudes, but is now flourishing as a community arts and performance center, thanks to the enthusiasm of its local supporters. It was also the inauguration of a new institution, the Hubbard Hall Opera Company, the brainchild of Alexina Jones. The performance was a delight because of the quality of the young, solidly trained voices, the imaginative use of the hall as a three-dimensional performance space, and the lively acting of an intelligently directed cast, who wanted nothing better than to bring Da Ponte’s human comedy and Mozart’s music to life. Now five of those excellent singers have reassembled to begin another enterprise, The Capital Opera, with a mission “to provide the Capital Region quality experiences in opera and classical vocal music while providing emerging and developing artists a venue for role study and performance in complete operas. The company seeks out the best talent available while maintaining a strong commitment to include local artists in concerts and productions.” Another one of the Hubbard Hall group, Richard Mazzaferro, is behind this newborn, but ambitious institution.

Blue, Edinburgh

lucas.miller@berkshirereview.net (Lucas Miller) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:30:13 -0400

Just off Lothian Road – a few minutes north of the Kings Theatre and Cameo Cinema, across from the Filmhouse, beside Usher Hall (now undergoing renovation) and the Royal Lyceum, and in the same complex as the Traverse Theatre – is the restaurant, Blue. Its proximity to Edinburgh’s main cultural venues makes it ideal for an early dinner before heading to the theatre or cinema. But to describe it simply as being near to these places and therefore handy, is to miss the point. Blue is too good for that – it is a place that stands on its own, while happily catering to this appreciative audience. It is a great restaurant.

The Fall

lucas.miller@berkshirereview.net (Lucas Miller) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:33:43 -0400

The Fall (2006) is a multinational blend of people, landscape, architecture and colour. The result is a beautiful motion picture that explores, in a unique way, the human imagination and its limitless fancy.

The Fall is shot on location in eighteen different countries and many more locations (these include, in no particular order: India, Romania, France, America, South Africa, Egypt). At this, one thinks of air tickets and crew. Must be high budget, eh? Not so. Director and co-writer Tarsem Singh – who also directs advertisements – financed the film by himself, shooting magnificent sceneries wherever his work took him for over the course of sixteen years. Tarsem, who was born in India, matches his country’s wonderful taste in vibrant colours in this picture. (Indeed, a sizable portion of it is shot in that country).

John Harbison, Winter’s Tale (1974, rev. 1991)

author@berkshirereview.net (Charles Warren) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:37:22 -0400

John Harbison is a composer of international importance and deserves, and gets, performances and honors everywhere. But it is especially appropriate that Boston honor him, on this the occasion of his seventieth birthday, because he has given so much to the city as teacher, founder and leader of musical groups, promoter of music’s importance, encourager of young musicians, and, yes, composer. Boston’s many musical organizations, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, have turned to Harbison over the years for new pieces and been supplied with plenty that have meant a great deal to audiences here—chamber ensemble works, vocal works, symphonies. In the concert of March 20th, the formidable Boston Modern Orchestra Project, led by Gil Rose, presented in concert version Harbison’s early opera Winter’s Tale, based on the Shakespeare play. And though at the end the audience reception was very warm for all concerned, the greatest applause went to the composer.

An Oresteia, after Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, trans. Anne Carson

author@berkshirereview.net (Ilya Khodosh) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:43:43 -0400

Committing to four hours of classical Greek tragedy has the potential to turn into a tedious, bloated, inscrutable nightmare, but Anne Carson’s breezy, colloquial adaptations of three ancient plays are wonders of intelligibility. This trilogy, presented by the Classic Stage Company either in two evenings or as one marathon-length afternoon, isn’t the set of Aeschylus plays commonly referred to as The Oresteia, which premiered in Athens in 458 BC. Instead, it’s a compendium of three plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides that chart the travails of the cursed house of Atreus in three vastly different styles, ranging from sanctimonious earnestness to campy self-parody. Watching tone and language transform in An Oresteia is akin to tracking the changes in a long-running TV series that jumped the shark after its original writers had moved on to bigger things.

The Paula Peyraud Sale at Bloomsbury Auctions, New York

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:47:40 +0200

Paula Fentress Peyraud (1947 – 2008) was an avid reader and collector from a very early age. Fortunately she lived in her family’s substantial house in Chappaqua, New York, which, over a period of some thirty years, she filled principally with books, but also with manuscripts, autograph letters, paintings, drawings and prints. She also accumulated a vast collection of modern editions, dealer and sale catalogues—she discarded nothing—that caused her to have built a tower addition to the house, with a book room, about twenty-five years ago.

Emmanuel Music - Bach, St. Matthew Passion; John Harbison, conductor; April 5, 2009; Schütz, St. Matthew Passion; April 10, 2009

author@berkshirereview.net (Charles Warren) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:50:35 +0200

Bach’s St. Matthew Passion functions as religious music, presenting the trial and crucifixion of Christ, setting the words of Matthew’s Gospel and adding to this choruses and solos where devout souls meditate upon one moment in the sequence of events or upon the larger meaning of it all. A Christian can confront this work and feel a deepening and strengthening of faith and understanding already held. But Bach’s Passion also makes of the story of Christ’s sacrifice a great work of art, compelling as art is compelling, in ways not quite the same as the ways religion is compelling. The Bach is a vast and experimental work, trying to find and seeming to find new musical invention at every stage — large complex choruses, simple choral hymns dating from earlier times but now re-harmonized and repeated with variations, vocal solos of great variety in form and tempo and mood, solos and duets with choral intervention, and so on and on. I once heard philosopher Stanley Cavell call the piece “the Kant and Hegel of music.”

Boston Symphony Orchestra 2009-10 Season Program Listing

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:53:22 +0200

Bellini, La Sonnambula at the Met with Dessay, Flórez, and Pertusi, dir. Zimmerman

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:13:06 +0200

An immense success in its first production in 1831 as well as in its first performances at the Met (1883), La Sonnambula’s popularity waned—at the Met at least—after the First World War. In later revivals, it was presented as a vehicle for sopranos who could fully exploit the florid ornament of Bellini’s writing for its heroine, Amina. Twenty-eight years elapsed between Lily Pons’ last performance of the role in 1935 and Joan Sutherland’s first appearance in it in 1963, which was hailed as the revival of the lost art of bel canto. It held its own at the Met as long as Sutherland performed it, that is, until 1969. Three years later Renata Scotto brought a more dramatic approach to Amina, but her performances of the role never went beyond the 1972 season. Only this year, 37 years later, has the opera been revived, with Natalie Dessay, who enters the role with her own mélange of satisfying musicality, dramatic energy, and charismatic charm, in an unconventional production by Mary Zimmerman, which has attracted a storm of vociferous criticism.

The Metropolitan Opera Company, Season Preview, 2009-10

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:14:47 +0200

As the 2008-09 Met Season progresses, I am struck by how often I have been tempted to resort to superlatives. In October Don Giovanni and Salome were truly extraordinary performances. I was reluctant to say it myself, but I heard two friends say that that Don Giovanni was the finest they had ever heard, and I had to agree, at least as far as the singers were concerned. Not only did the principles sing and act at the very highest levels, each of the secondary roles were filled by top-level singers who were also intelligent actors. This extra effort and expense to make casts consistent in quality has made an important difference. In spite of the inevitable shortcomings and controversial points of La Damnation de Faust, Tristan, and Orfeo, these were also thoroughly memorable performances with many outstanding contributions. Who could forget Susan Graham’s Marguerite, Barenboim’s conducting of Tristan, or Stephanie Blythe’s Orfeo? Now after seeing this production of Eugene Onegin and the HD broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor (to be reviewed shortly), I’m keenly aware of what an extraordinary season it has been.

Old Master Week I: Master Drawings New York 2009

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:18:35 +0200

Around the last week of every January, these connoisseurs descend on New York for “Old Master Week,” as they affectionately call it. As Sotheby’s and Christie’s hold their sales of old master paintings, drawings, and sculpture, the major local and European dealers exhibit the best they have to show in galleries along Madison Avenue. Many of the out-of-town dealers show under the auspices of Master Drawings in New York, a joint initiative which began as Master Drawings in London, an early July event which similarly complements the London old master sales. Beyond that, the Morgan Library will present The Thaw Collection of Master Drawings: Acquisitions Since 2002, the current installment of a series of exhibitions going back to 1975. Now, after more than thirty years, Eugene Thaw appears to be the last of the collectors of master drawings, who acquired on a truly grand scale. For that matter, at the Met, The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions will still be on view through February 1 and will also offer a few valuable lessons for the developing connoisseur.

Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective - Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 1 - May 11, 2009

author@berkshirereview.net (Huntley Dent) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:43:32 +0200

Pretty funny guy, for a German. The curators who put together the current large retrospective of Martin Kippenberger, knowing that his name will be new to almost every visitor, have emphasized that he’s funny. Or, to use their choice of words, hilarious, absurd, all over the map. Without prompting, I doubt that many viewers would think so. Early in his career, which began around 1971, Kippenberger coated a Ford Capri in brown paint mixed with straw and oatmeal. We are told that this is a humorous comment on Anselm Kiefer, the prominent German painter who famously coated the surface of his canvases with straw. Okay.

John Cage Tribute Concert at Bard; Lecture on the Weather

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:48:42 +0200

During his career, which lasted from the late 1930’s up to his death in 1992, John Cage revolutionized music by reducing its vocabulary (even to silence!) and expanding its sonic range by assimilating a vast array of unusual and exotic instruments and non-musical sounds. Meanwhile he ventured into other art forms, drawing, poetry, theoretical writings, stage, dance, and film, either alone or with collaborators, notably his lifetime creative partner Merce Cunningham. Through this the musical notations developed new symbols and formats not found in traditional scores. While his indications are often quite detailed and precise, performance practices involve many aspects, which cannot be recorded on paper, or even conveyed in the many recordings and films of his works, which were made during his lifetime and under his direction.

Summer Music in the Berkshires, New England, and New York, 2009

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:03:39 +0200

Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective - Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 1 - May 11, 2009

author@berkshirereview.net (Huntley Dent) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:24:23 +0200

Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music by John Lucas

author@berkshirereview.net (Huntley Dent) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:27:53 +0200

The inimitable Beecham. A London impresario who competed with him called him ‘the bold bad baronet.’ Toscanini was more pithy and called him ‘pagliaccio,’ a clown. In return Beecham dubbed him ‘Toscaninny.’ At the turn of the century Beecham was willing to lose $5 million of his family’s fortune, amassed by selling the world’s most popular laxative, to personally fund a national opera for England. He bestrode the British musical scene with unflappable autocracy, yet it was also the country he scandalously abandoned during the worst years of the Blitz. On returning from America, where he observed the war from a coddled distance, Beecham endured the last months of V-2 rocket attacks. His main concern was whether the blackout rules allowed him to smoke his cigar on the street at night.

Paul Griffiths, The Substance of Things Heard - Writings about Music

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:29:52 +0200

I read these reviews one by one, slowly, immersing myself in Paul Griffiths’ vividly recorded experiences, and coping with flashes of envy at not having been there on the scene at the time. While he has written a sufficient number of books on twentieth century composers to establish himself as an authority—books on Bartók, Cage, Messiaen, Boulez, Maxwell Davies, surveys of twentieth-century music and the string quartet, as well as the Penguin Companion to Classical Music—he has written regular reviews for the Times and the Financial Times, as well as the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times and the New Yorker, that is, as he says, “scribbling nine hundred words in forty-five minutes.” In this way he has become a master of compression, of bringing events to life with a few salient details.

Gergiev with the LSO in Prokofiev Symphonies and Concertos at Avery Fisher Hall - Entire Series Reviewed

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:22:38 +0200

Now that Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra have completed the first half of their traversal of Prokofiev’s symphonies and a selection of his concerti for piano and violin, one can catch one’s breath, assimilate some of the rarely-heard music that has been played, and ponder this exciting new partnership of orchestra and conductor. It is, after all, Gergiev’s first tour with the LSO as principle conductor, and, since Prokofiev, ever versatile, explored so many different strategies of structure, texture, and orchestration, these concerts are a remarkable opportunity to become familiar with Gergiev’s way with the London musicians. Not that “familiar” is quite an appropriate word: Mr. Gergiev has a unique gift for surprising his audiences—for making them gasp in admiration at some unexpected turn or gesture. His concerts are always an adventure.

All-Natural, Free-Ranging Baroque at Simon’s Rock, April 26, 2009.

author@berkshirereview.net (Seth Lachterman) — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:26:41 +0200

Bardo, Hammer and Wallach: It’s a great treat to hear masterful and polished performances of this music that never betrayed the letter of the style yet never failed to be gracious, emotive, varied and thoroughly musical.

Alice Tully Hall Opening Nights: Coming Home - Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 03 May 2009 00:36:53 +0200

Any one who did not experience the Upper West Side in the late 1960s, when Lincoln Center was nearing completion, or who has forgotten, might read Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet. There was an apocalyptic feeling in the air—more palpable than anything the Bush administration tried to conjure up— as one negotiated panhandlers, muggers, hippies, and refuse, as one made one’s way up and down Broadway. These public phenomena have not vanished, but New York had reached a peak of dysfunctionality, and western civilization seemed to be self-destructing at a fierce boil: cities were decaying around the country, reading and writing seemed doomed to obsolescence, tv was king, and a lot of people were worried about the cultural partnership of drugs and music. In a few sentences, Bellow conjures up what all this felt like on the street. Exposed glass walls seemed no more than an invitation to vandals, and check points were beginning to appear in the seedy lobbies of public buildings.

Café des Artistes, New York

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:22:58 +0200

So much has been said about the current craze for restaurant-going by people who are striving to understand it, either for enlightenment or profit, that it seems a truism to observe that a visit to a restaurant is a kind of travel, not entirely ersatz, but something between dreaming of Capri in an armchair and jumping on the train to Fire Island. The decorator has provided the sets, the chef a motive for going there, the staff a supporting cast; the diners at the table have their relationships, their hierarchy, and their desires, and, if the evening out is going to be any fun, they’re ready to play their roles. Dining out is also a self-generated theater, the ultimate interactive entertainment. It can be a journey in time, as well as a mildly-imagined land travel. Most people will go out for something old just as readily as something new, although the longevity of restaurants is tenuous enough these days to put that in question.

The Best Minds of our Generation…Patti Smith, Philip Glass, and Allen Ginsberg at the City Winery

author@berkshirereview.net (Robert Kurilla) — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:06:36 +0200

On Palm Sunday at the City Winery, it was a great honor to see two great artists celebrate the life of their dear mutual friend, the poet and activist, Allen Ginsberg. This night commemorated the twelfth anniversary of his passing, and Patti Smith and Philip Glass held the audience in the palm of their hands or, rather, their warm embrace, channeling Allen’s presence in the best way they know how: Ms. Smith reciting his poetry, among others’, while Mr. Glass played simultaneously some excerpts of his compositions at the Steinway grand and a special section that included Jesse Smith, Patti’s daughter. The combination of music and poetry was not lost on the audience as a hybrid “beat” gig Ginsberg would have enjoyed. Spanning the years of time and friendship, the performance was quite the paean to the iconoclastic poet’s life and this exalted spirit could be felt throughout the room.

Café des Artistes, New York

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:16:12 +0200

reasons to be pretty, by Neil LaBute, directed by Terry Kinney, Lyceum Theater, New York

author@berkshirereview.net (Ilya Khodosh) — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:18:53 -0400

Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty opens in the middle of a brutal domestic quarrel during which a young woman puts on her shoes, screams at her bewildered soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, takes his car keys, and storms out the door. It’s a frightening and hysterical overreaction to what he considered an innocuous comment about her appearance, made in the course of a bull session to a macho buddy. The scenario brings up some ugly gender stereotypes that color LaBute’s cynical and embittered universe.

Pollock Matters, The McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College: Part I

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 10 May 2009 11:08:11 -0400

Herbert Matter recalled that in 1942, when they first met over dinner, Jackson Pollock said to him, “It’s a really wonderful time to be living.” He added,“That gave us plenty to think about the rest of the evening.” I wonder how many people would say that today. For my part, after rehearsing a string of problems and miseries irrelevant to the present topic, the amazing exhibition, Pollock Matters, which closes this Sunday (December 9) at the McMullen Museum of Boston College, I would say that we take controversy too seriously. As the debates among the presidential candidates drivel on in equivocation, and the incumbent goes about his work of ruining the country, those Americans who are interested in one of their country’s greatest painters may or may not find themselves sufficiently clear-headed to realize that this exhibition has been so much wrapped up in controversy, that few see its real issues or even care about them. It concerns the discovery of a cache of small experimental works, according to a label made by their owner, Herbert Matter, in 1958, the work of Jackson Pollock, and the collision of the discoverer, Matter’s son, Alex, with the blue-chip institution established by Pollock’s widow.

Pollock Matters, Part II: Pollock Matters, edited by Ellen G. Landau & Claude Cernuschi

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 10 May 2009 11:10:23 -0400

Pollock Matters and its catalogue lead us into the secrets of Pollock’s “invention” of those drips that looks so cool wrapped around your torso.

I took an interest in this exhibition first of all, because it seemed that some of the problems raised and the methods proposed might inject some life into the discipline of connoisseurship, which has been languishing in academia for around a quarter of a century now with little sign of revival, except in departments which maintain active programs in museum studies or conservation. I consider the subject worthwhile, because the primary evidence in art history consists of the artifacts themselves, and common sense (although not a fashionable entity in the more rarified academic circles) informs me that the art historian and the critic ignore the building blocks of knowledge at their peril. Even if one’s interests go beyond the “where,” “when,” “what,” and “by whom,” one needs to know them well, or at least to understand their nature as evidence. Today, while a student may find an opportunity to study connoisseurship in conjunction with conservators and laboratory technicians, traditional eye-training survives mostly in the institutions of the art market.[1]

Mozart Season 2009: Symphonies from Levine, Botstein, and Mackerras

editor@berkshirereview.net (Michael Miller) — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:10:56 -0400

Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Sir Charles Mackerras, conductor

Linn records CKD 308 (Winner of the 2009 Classical BRIT Critics’ Award)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 38 in D major (‘Prague’), K.504
Symphony No. 39 in E flat major, K.543
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550
Symphony No. 41 in C major (‘Jupiter’)

—

Boston Symphony Orchestra
James Levine, conductor

Thursday, February 12, 8 pm; Friday, February 13, 8 pm
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphonies Nos. 1, 4, 7, 13, and 14

Saturday, February 14, 8 pm; Tuesday, February 17, 8 pm
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphonies Nos. 15, 19, 21, and 25

Thursday, February 19, 10:30 a.m. (Open Rehearsal); Thursday February 19, 8 pm; Friday, February 20, 1:30 pm; Saturday, February 21, 8 pm
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 39
Symphony No. 40
Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”

—

Sosnoff Auditorium, Fisher Center, Bard College
Friday, February 6, and Saturday, February 7, 2009
American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, Music Director

George Tsontakis, Clair de Lune
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter”
Felix Mendelssohn, Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Silvestre Revueltas, La Noche de los Mayas

Now is as good a time as any to survey recent performances of Mozart’s symphonies, since Linn Records’ Mozart Symphonies 38 – 41 by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Sir Charles Mackerras has just won the Critics Award of Classical BRIT. Sir Charles’ earlier cycle of Mozart symphonies with the Prague Chamber Orchestra on Telarc won numerous prizes and remained at the top of many critics’ shortlists for many years. Now he has returned to the last four symphonies: the “Prague,” K. 504, K. 543, K. 550, and K. 551, the “Jupiter,” with the incomparable Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Linn’s incomparable recording technique. (Good news! This summer Sir Charles and the SCO will record five earlier symphonies, K. 201, K. 297, “Paris,” K. 318, K. 385, “Haffner,” and K. 425, “Linz.”) When Sir Charles, who is now 84, approaches a cycle of concerts or recordings, he usually has some new concept in mind behind the project, so that his approach not only has an innovative premise, it is musically fresh as well. He never repeats himself.