A Singer’s Notes by Keith Kibler 38: On the Road

Charlemont Federated Church, Home of Mohawk Trail Concerts

I get in my little car, and I go to marvelous things. My favorite is the Mohawk Trail Concerts. This marvelous series, run by Ruth Black, was for years the summer destination of the great Jan DeGaetani, and still boasts yearly visits from Joan Morris and William Bolcom. At various times I have heard the Fiordiligi who was singing Don Giovanni with James Levine at Tanglewood, a young woman who was sitting principal cellist later in the summer for a great performance of the Alpine Symphony with Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and major artists like Carol Wincenc. I have never heard a bad concert in this venue. The structure itself is a small church in the hamlet of Charlemont, Mass. Everything about the concert is informal. Mrs. Black speaks elegantly before each concert. One feels like one is at home. There is an almost bewildering variety to the series. It is not expensive. This summer I heard an all-too-rare performance of Fauré's piano quartet, Op.15 played by an old friend, John van Buskirk and the other members of the La Belle Alliance Trio. This was limpid, detailed playing with an acute sense of the quick-changing affect Fauré's music possesses, early or late. The trio made these shifts, like the shifts in thinking itself, into a consistent rhetoric that showed me how neglected this masterpiece is. It was an unaffected performance, which I was able to hear from about ten feet away. When you go, take note of a magnificent elm tree just across the street from the church. The elm is majestic. The church is humble. Hearing music in these concerts is a real experience, not a media event.

Read the full article
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








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The Australian Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Season – 2012 Season Preview and Schedule, David McAllister, Artistic Director by Andrew Miller

Swan-lake-australian-ballet-19

The boronia and the pink eriostemon are at the height of their bloom, most of the wattles are just finishing, the parrots, lorikeets and galahs are busy eating and nesting while the magpies are belligerent again and the air has taken on that warm, sweet, dusty polliniferous fragrance of spring. At least it has in this neck of the woods around 33 degrees South, but it isn't so unlike May in New England. It was when these times came around my piano teacher in school would drop everything to play something with sharps — nothing too hairy, G or D or A major, say. As spring suggests sharps, seeming to say 'up,' so does ballet. In the classical technique one seems to dance always thinking 'up': relevé, sauté, piqué, even in a simple run across the stage or studio, the feet press up, up, up. Even standing in place, the hips tip up and the body seems to lift buoyantly. Even coming down from a jump, the feet and legs push up as the dancer lands. A dancer maintains a respectful and gentle relationship with the ground, as the surfer to the sea. Naturally, it is spring the Australian Ballet announces its new season and we turn our thoughts to a new year of ballet, but those already looking for wildflowers in the Bush need not turn their heads far.

Read the full preview on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!

Joanna Gabler exhibits Orchid Mandalas at the Warsaw University Botanical Garden, September-October 2011


Joanna Gabler, Orchid Mandala, 2011

In celebration of Orchid Day, the Warsaw University Botanical Garden is presenting an exhibition of Joanna's "Orchid Mandalas," her transformations of orchids, she photographed when visiting the Botanical Gardens in June 2011. For more information (in Polish) click here.

For a full gallery of the mandalas, click here.

Read the notice
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








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First Cittaslow badge in North America goes to Cowichan Bay, by Rowland Morgan

Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island, BC: The derelict drawbridge was an unintentional gift from American neighbors on the Olympic Peninsula. Photo © 2009 Michael Miller.

The slow food movement is on the move with the branding of Canada's Cowichan Bay as the first "Cittaslow" community in North America. The Italian organisers, with scores of locations badged in Europe, intend to authorise the brand in many more places on this side of the Atlantic.

The quaint fishing village on Vancouver Island at the confluence of the salmon-bearing Koksilah and Cowichan rivers has all the required ingredients: a convivial community in a pleasing setting, with behind it an array of small farms producing everything from wine to organic bread grains. Could your community be next? (1) In Cowichan Bay village local residents crowded into Bruce Stewart's picturesque True Grain organic bakery to sign up for the slow-food movement and give the branding application a rousing send-off. Back in Orvieto, north of Rome, the sages examined the evidence, weighed up the issues, and granted Cittaslow status. So now, you can add to famous names like Lucca (Cittaslow Tuscany) and Alassio (Cittaslow Liguria) the name of Cowichan Bay.

Read the full review
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








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Riccardo III by William Shakespeare, directed by Marco Carniti – until September 18, Silvano Toti Globe Theatre, Rome, by Daniel B. Gallagher

Lady Anna (Federica Bern). Margherita figlia di Clarence (Benedetta Cigliano), Duchessa di York (Paila Pavese), Elisabetta, moglie di Re Edoardo (Sandra Collodel ), Riccardo, Duca di Gloucester, poi Riccardo III (Maurizio Donadoni)

Director – Marco Carniti
Translator – Enrico Groppali
Adaption – Marco Carniti
Production – Politeama Srl

The Empire has gone Elizabethan. Built in 2003, the Silvano Toti Globe Theatre threatens to trump even the Baths of Caracalla (the city’s open-air opera house) as the cultural center point of Rome in the sweltering summer months. This season, the company cooked up an ambitious program including La tempesta (The Tempest), Pene d’amor perdute (Love’s Labour’s Lost), Sogno di una notte di mezza estate (A Midsummer Night’s Dream),Dodicesima notte (Twelfth Night), and now closing with Riccardo III (Richard III).

Don’t be scared by the foreign language. Even if you’ve read the play only once or twice, you’ll have no problem following the action (though rudimentary Italian will help). In fact, maximal accuracy was not the overriding concern for translator Enrico Groppali and director Marco Carniti. They rather aimed for superb drama and a strict fidelity to the plot. The result is an authentic, barely abridged Richard III (running over four hours) showing greater erudition and ingenuity than many productions in the original English.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!



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Fan Tan Alley, September, 2011 : The Alamo of Victoria Heritage? by JC Scott

Fan Tan Alley, Victoria, British Columbia. Photo © 2009 Michael Miller.

Perhaps as a graduate architectural historian, who had the advantage of critical thinking applied to the subject of appropriate heritage preservation under the strict protocols of first Pierre du Prey, special advisor to Phyllis Lambert, creator and philanthropic founder of the CCA (Centre for Canadian Architecture) at Queen’s University, and then by Professor Martin Weaver from Columbia University through continuing education studies at U Vic, I am either advantaged in my thinking on this subject or perhaps disadvantaged, but I definitely am out of step with our mayor and council on appropriate heritage renovation policy. And our Mayor is quite happy to quote on record that he is in step with The Hallmark Society, The City of Victoria Heritage Committee, City Heritage Planning Staff and in fact in his view, all the heritage bodies who the city should attend to, are in favour of his view of heritage policy.

Read the full article
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








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The Williamstown Theatre Festival 2011 – a Success Story, a Disaster, and an Appeal, by Michael Miller

Williamstown Theatre Festival's Prop Storage Area following Tropical Storm Irene, August 2011
Unfortunately, behind WTF gratifying achievement there has been a dark, even grim background. During the winter the roof collapsed in the workshop/storage area WTF maintained in the Delftree Building in North Adams, a decaying mill that should have been condemned years ago. Because the building finally was condemned, it was impossible to retrieve the sets and tools until May. Fortunately almost everything was intact. Ms. Gersten worked fast to reestablish the facility in the Blackinton Mill, and the 2011 season was able to proceed with sets which have been consistently outstanding throughout. Tragically, WTF's space in Blackinton was one of the serious victims of tropical storm Irene, and many of the historical sets and props which go back to the early days of the festival's history have been lost. WTF have launched a campaign for funds to rebuild the destroyed workshop and to retrieve what can be saved.

Read the full article on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!



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Richard Wagner, Parsifal, directed by Stefan Herheim and conducted by Daniele Gatti, Bayreuther Festspiele (2010 Performance Reviewed), by Michael Miller

Parsifal (Christopher Ventris) and Amfortas (Detlef Roth) before the Bundestag in Act III. Photo Enrico Nawrath.

Richard Wagner, Parsifal

Daniele Gatti, Conductor
Stefan Herheim, Stage Director
Heike Scheele, Set Designer
Gesine Völlm, Costume Designer
Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach, Dramaturg
Momme Hinrichs/Torge Møller, Video
Eberhard Friedrich, Choral Director

Cast 2010//2011:
Amfortas - Detlef Roth
Titurel - Diógenes Randes
Gurnemanz - Kwangchul Youn
Parsifal - Christopher Ventris//Simon O'Neill (2011)
Klingsor - Thomas Jesatko//Martin Snell (8.9.2011)
Kundry - Susan Maclean
1. Gralsritter - Arnold Bezuyen
2. Gralsritter - Friedemann Röhlig
1. Knappe - Julia Borchert/Jutta Maria Böhnert (8.27.2010)
2. Knappe - Ulrike Helzel
3. Knappe - Clemens Bieber
4. Knappe - Willem Van der Heyden
Klingsors Zaubermädchen - Julia Borchert/Stephanie Hanf (8.26.2010)
Klingsors Zaubermädchen - Martina Rüping
Klingsors Zaubermädchen - Carola Guber
Klingsors Zaubermädchen - Christiane Kohl
Klingsors Zaubermädchen - Jutta Maria Böhnert
Klingsors Zaubermädchen - Ulrike Helzel
Altsolo - Simone Schröder

Ritual is everywhere in Wagner's operas and music dramas. He even has his way of transforming crucial events in his stories into quasi-rituals through symbolism. Ritual is even more pervasive in his final work, hisBühnenweihfestspiel, Parsifal, which is in itself a ritual. The highly ritualized routines of the Grail knights connect their lives and the events of the drama with the continuum of the Grail's history, back to the Last Supper. Their actions are highly deliberate, replete with the significance of faith and tradition. This creates a quasi-monastic environment in which life unfolds slowly, largely ceremonially, on the structure of a time-honored schedule, in which history and precedent are always present. The narrative unfolds with notable simplicity in terms of what occurs on stage, while beneath it, the backstory related in monologues seethes with incident, conflict, and misfortune. In addition to this dramatic foreground purified of trivialities, there is the pure transparency of Wagner's score, consisting of simple thematic material set with surpassing clarity, delicacy, and harmonic subtlety. In this way Parsifal lives up to what we have been conditioned to expect from the late work of a great artist, and this is what we see and hear on the stage, if Wagner's stage directions are observed.

Read the full review
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








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Sydney Symphony OrchestraVladimir Ashkenazy, Artistic Director, 2012 Season Preview and Concert Schedule, by Andrew Miller (*REVISED WITH CONCERT SCHEDULE*)

Vladimir Ashkenazy. Photo: Decca, Jim Steere.

It was good news that Vladimir Ashkenazy renewed his contract as artistic director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra through 2013. 2012 will be his fourth season with the SSO and the orchestra's 80th anniversary. The Maestro will spend four months in Sydney conducting the orchestra himself in the summers at either end of the year, opening in February with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and ending in December with a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's opera Queen of Spades. In his Mahler cycle especially, ending this year, Ashkenazy has shown how he is as excellent an interpreter of symphonies as of piano music, with an attention to detail and rapport with the musicians which brings out their best and an approach to the music which is genuine and strongly felt yet restrained, coming from a deep respect for and empathy with the composer. As a master pianist, he has a natural talent for choosing soloists — especially pianists — not least including 2011 invitees and collaborators Jean Efflam-Bavouzet and Stephen Osborne. As a complement to his good judgement, the Sydney Symphony's expansion into organizer of international soloists' recitals was an excellent idea, giving us concert goers a chance to hear the soloists on their own, after their concerti with Ashkenazy. These recitals brought some wonderful and seldom heard music to Sydney in 2011, though there is some repetition in 2012's programs of certain pieces by Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt.

Read the full preview
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!







(*REVISED WITH CONCERT SCHEDULE*) Sydney Symphony Orchestra 2012 Season Preview and Concert Schedule, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Artistic Director

Ashkenazy-decca-jim-steere-red


It was good news that Vladimir Ashkenazy renewed his contract as artistic director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra through 2013. 2012 will be his fourth season with the SSO and the orchestra's 80th anniversary. The Maestro will spend four months in Sydney conducting the orchestra himself in the summers at either end of the year, opening in February with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and ending in December with a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's opera Queen of Spades. In his Mahler cycle especially, ending this year, Ashkenazy has shown how he is as excellent an interpreter of symphonies as of piano music, with an attention to detail and rapport with the musicians which brings out their best and an approach to the music which is genuine and strongly felt yet restrained, coming from a deep respect for and empathy with the composer. As a master pianist, he has a natural talent for choosing soloists — especially pianists — not least including 2011 invitees and collaborators Jean Efflam-Bavouzet and Stephen Osborne. As a complement to his good judgement, the Sydney Symphony's expansion into organizer of international soloists' recitals was an excellent idea, giving us concert goers a chance to hear the soloists on their own, after their concerti with Ashkenazy. These recitals brought some wonderful and seldom heard music to Sydney in 2011, though there is some repetition in 2012's programs of certain pieces by Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt.

Read the full preview and concert schedule on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!