Nov 19 2008
There were plenty of wild cheers at last night's Lang Lang concert, so I am sure some of you disagreed with my assessment. If so -- please register here and comment. Of course, you can also tell me that you agree with me!
By the way, People Magazine just named the Chinese pianists one of its "Sexist Men Alive." I know he acts like a rock star on stage, and there is a certain sexiness about that, but I am just not seeing comparing him to the others on the list! But beauty is in the eye of the beholder (piano playing, too).
The review:
In rare Heinz Hall recital, Lang Lang plays it his way
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
By Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It's been more than a quarter of a century since the last piano recital at Heinz Hall. It's not a question of whether or not a soloist's sound can fill the large hall, but whether or not the pianist's fans can. The Pittsburgh Symphony would love to book recitals on nights the hall is dark, but the approximately 2,700 seats are too much for most pianists.
Not Lang Lang.
The Chinese pianist -- and probably the most famous classical artist in the world -- nearly sold out the joint, and with a rather serious program of Schubert, Bartok, Debussy and Chopin. But Lang Lang is virtuosic not just with stunning pianistic technique, but also at rendering works fun for the audience by making phrases leap out with vitality all his own.
But unfortunately, this rendering often is indeed a melting down of the original. His performance of Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 20 was a muddled parade of striking phrases rather than an whole artistic utterance. Lang Lang varied every statement of recurring themes in first movement, losing the long line. His tone in the second was gorgeous, but the Scherzo had little resemblance to the Viennese conception of rhythm and the finale was chocked full of whimsical ritards and decrescendos. The dynamic range was either extremely quiet or loud.
Bartok's Piano Sonata, Sz. 80, was a wild romp, with a galloping first movement and well-timed accelerando in the finale. The rhythms weren't incisive in the Bartokian tradition, but I never enjoyed the piece so much.
Maybe this is the key to hearing Lang Lang -- sit back and let his impulsive, rock star-like playing wash over you, even if it seems to alter the pieces. In this regard, he is akin to many beloved conductors with ultra-personal interpretations. And there is no doubt that his constantly aggressive and varied-by-the-measure approach has brought new fans and new attention to classical music.
But I couldn't help thinking as Lang Lang continuously lost the tone color he started with in selected Preludes by Debussy and as he obliterated musical tension with a ridiculously rushed Chopin "Heroic" Polonaise, that he could give everyone much more by trusting the score's inherent power more.
First published on November 19, 2008 at 12:00 am
Nov 17 2008
OK, here we go again. I'd like to see what you thought of Ricky Ian Gordon's "Grapes of Wrath" that opened at the Pittsburgh Opera this weekend. Here is my review. Tell me whether you thought it was sour grapes or sweet by commenting (register here, it is quick and easy!):
By the way, additional thoughts that didn't make it in my review:
It is pretty rare in opera to have an opera that challenges you in the Brechtian sense as this one did to me, channeling Steinbeck's goal in his novel. It is hard to walk out of "Madama Butterfly" feeling that you should change your life to help Japanese geishas of the 18th century, but with "Grapes," especially with its allusions to contemporary immigrant issues and American refugees (Hurricane Katrina) and (though obviously not initially intended) a connection to the present economic crisis, definitely made me think about people being downtrodden in the real world and what further I could do to help. That was an important part of "Grapes" and one I thought Ricky Gordon captured well.
Also, talked to someone who went to the opera and felt the Noah drowning scene was too much since he wasn't really featured before that. I do think he could have been fleshed out more to balance what was coming, but I still think the scene and Ma Joad's aria gave us a window into just how horrible this experience was -- her whole family is drowning, and it was symbolized by Noah and driven home by the flashback to her love for him as a baby. It worked for me. In the end, if any character didn't seem fully human or seemed a little clichéd, you have to point to Steinbeck as much as Gordon, as the author has been criticized for this, and rightly. In his novel, the characters tend to be an outreach of his preaching an anti-capitalist rant, and not always the most rounded.
here's the review...
'Grapes of Wrath' bears fruit for Opera
Monday, November 17, 2008
By Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
While John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" abounds in the raw depiction of displaced sharecroppers' lives during the Great Depression, its most profound moments are subtle and distant. Steinbeck's journalistic style led him to underplay such scenes, in part because he already had heavily weighted the novel with biblical imagery and sobering accounts of corrupt business tactics. Clearly the celebrated novel holds moments of staggering emotion, but Steinbeck left much more on the tree, sentiments waiting to be plucked like the fruit for which the Joad Family wretchedly toils. No better art exists than music to do that.
This is essentially Ricky Ian Gordon's achievement in his work, "The Grapes of Wrath," which opened its run at the Benedum Center Saturday in a top-rate production by Pittsburgh Opera. It is not a retelling of the novel, but an unpacking of its emotional core and even the greater tragedy of the Great Depression itself. Set with unaffected melody and underpinned by an orchestra both evocative and foreboding, transgressions hit the listener harder and tender scenes made the eyes moister, at least than I remember when reading the book years ago. The criterion for whether a novel should be translated into another art form must begin and end with the question: Can it offer something new? Gordon's most definitely does.
Pittsburgh Opera's 'The Grapes of Wrath'
- Where: Benedum Center, Downtown
- When: 7 p.m. tomorrow; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m. Sunday
- Tickets: Start at $16
- More information: 412-456-6666
Called an opera and sung that way, but like a musical progressing by numbers, with songs rather than arias and with body miking, "Grapes" is better understood more ambiguously as a piece of lyric theater. That is helped by an excellent cast adept at articulating a conversational style with light, clear voices. Gordon applied not only different genres, but also a variety of musical styles such as Copland-esque regionalism, swing, jazz, blues and folk. The orchestra, under conductor Richard Buckley, handled these with precision.
There is no question that Gordon's music was in the service of the plot -- different from most operas in which the story can be secondary to the outpouring of aria after gorgeous aria. But his theatrically driven music drove this tale well and was not without many substantial and beautiful melodies: from the evocative openness of the chorus "The Last Time There Was Rain" to Ma Joad's transporting lullaby "Simple Child" to the strangely appealing vocals uttered above the square dance. And there was a central character among the huge cast -- the rock of the family, Ma Joad (Elizabeth Bishop). Bishop's blue-tinged vocal inflections captured the pain and her acting the willpower of a mother who had no choice but to keep "hangin' on."
Gordon and librettist Michael Korie substantially rewrote "Grapes" for this production. Much of Act 1 was different than it was in its Minnesota Opera premiere last year. Still, the opera started slowly, coming into its own more in the latter two acts. There's unquestionably much material to get to, but I am not sold that the setup needs to be even this complete, especially when it appeared to lose some patrons.
Act 2, starting with a touching portrayal of a diner scene interaction between the Okies and a truck-stop waitress (Anna Jablonski in a marvelous Andrews Sisters-like number) and ending with a visually breathtaking scene in which Noah Joad (Andrew Wilkowske) drowns himself, was nothing short of brilliant. The Third Act went overboard when Uncle John (Robert Orth) sends Rosasharn's (Danielle Pastin) stillborn baby down a swollen creek represented by aggressive group choreography (with a poor young girl "tossed around" above them). But the final scene arrived with more transcendence than I would have thought the actual visual could create -- Steinbeck only hints at it, such was its potency. But with serenity displayed on her face and singing with a silvery timbre, Pastin nourished the starving man in a moving pieta-like pose.
The production was excellent, with fluid dramatic interjections and spectacular scene building. Impersonal scaffolding and rusty corrugated siding surrounded the sepia-toned clothes of the cast, and minimalist sets and a video backdrop gave "Grapes" a light-on-its-feet realism. The choreography (excepting that Moses scene) was natural, with believable interplay between Grampa (Joseph Frank) and Granma (Anna Singer), Ruthie (Michelle Coben) and Winfield (Joseph Serafini) and the multiple roles of Gregory Pearson and Theodore Chletsos.
The initial portrayal of Jim Casy (Sean Panikkar) as some sort of vaudeville actor, strumming the ukulele, was odd, but he was developed expertly. Craig Verm captured the smoldering soul of Tom Joad, Peter Halverson the "hayseed" naivete of Pa Joad and Jason Karn the young man's frustration of Al Joad.
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Nov 14 2008
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation announced today that cellist Alisa Weilerstein will do advocacy work for it. When she was 9, doctors diagnosed with diabetes and she has dealt with it well, especially considering the rigors of being an international soloist. She has performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony and surely will be back, so we can talk about it with her more then.
"That Ms. Weilerstein maintains such a busy schedule while managing her diabetes 24 hours a day, seven days a week makes her an excellent example of how diabetes does not mean curtailing ambition, a message she aims to spread in her new role," said the Foundation in a release.
Not only is it great that Weilerstein is doing this, but it also is heartening that classical music still has the star power that foundations would even look to it for spreading the word about something cause it is just another example of how relevant it is despite what some naysayers predict.
Nov 13 2008
The Pittsburgh Opera's production of "Grapes of Wrath" is about to open, but it is how it will end has many people wondering. Not so much what happens -- that's pretty famous -- but how it will be portrayed. The scene in which Rosasharon breast-feeds a starving old man is really only hinted at in John Steinbeck's novel. Acting it out is more difficult.
The Opera tells me that: "great care is being taken to make the breastfeeding scene at the end of the opera as tasteful and 'beatific' as possible," says the company's spokesperson Beth Parker. And the singers will have some help.
The soprano playing Rosasharn in our production is Danielle Pastin (not pictured above, 
which is a photo from the Minnesota Opera production from last year, but in a head shot right). The Pittsburgh Opera Center resident artist will wear a prosthetic breast made by the Carnegie Mellon University theater department (I will try to find out that person's name or someone could post it as a comment.)
It is a tricky situation, but I am sure a prosthetic breast is a great solution, one that will likely make this moment quite realistic and unsettling (like it should be) and still enormously touching.
"Grapes" plays 8 p.m. Saturday; 7 p.m. Tuesday; 8 p.m. Nov. 21; 2 p.m. Nov. 23. Tickets start at $16; call 412-456-6666.
Nov 12 2008
This AP story from earlier this week caught my eye. During my writing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" this summer I became intrigued again with Tin Pan Alley (a later pop counterpart, the Brill Building, is also fascinating), out of which a voluminous amount of iconic songs sprung. It was not just a musical phenomenon, but a reflection of our country's make-up: capitalism, innovation and hard work combining to make some telling rags-to-riches stories. Not to mention "God Bless America" was written there!
It has been disheartening recently to hear that the buildings might be torn down in the name of more needless housing in already overpopulated and overpriced New York City. We are talking Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin and George Gershwin here! We need to cherish the landmarks of our music's past, not knock them down. Just look at how Europe has preserved theirs. And if money is all you care about, in support of putting in a high-rise, realize just how robust the European tourist trade has been for the sites of classical music's past. Tourists don't pour in money to visit high rises!
But this article from this week, I believe, shows that there is a silver lining in this dark economic cloud:
NEW YORK – A group of New Yorkers is fighting to save Tin Pan Alley, the half-dozen row houses where iconic American songs were born.
The four-story, 19th-century buildings on Manhattan's West 28th Street were home to publishers of some of the catchiest American tunes and lyrics — from "God Bless America" and "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" to "Give My Regards to Broadway."
The music of Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, George M. Cohan and other greats was born on Tin Pan Alley.
The buildings were put up for sale earlier this fall for $44 million, with plans to replace them with a high-rise. The construction plan fell through amid the turmoil in the economy, but the possibility of losing the historic block hastened efforts to push for landmark status for Tin Pan Alley.
"The fear of these buildings being sold for development crystallized their importance, and the need to preserve them," said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, a nonprofit preservation organization aiming to secure city landmark status for the buildings, which would protect them from being destroyed. The Landmarks Commission is "researching the history of the buildings and reviewing whether they'd be eligible for landmark designation," said Lisi de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission.
No date has been set for a decision, which she said depends on "a combination of historical, cultural and architectural significance."
The block is sacred to Tim Schreier, a great-great-grandson of Jerome H. Remick, whose music publishing company occupied one of the houses and employed a young sheet music peddler named George Gershwin.
"I'm not opposed to development in New York, but we have to balance development with history — and this is definitely American cultural history," said Schreier.
From the late 1880s to the mid-1950s, the careers of songwriters who are still popular today were launched from the buildings at 45, 47, 49, 51, 53 and 55 West 28th.
Nearby, high-rise condominiums have pushed out old brownstones. The four-story Tin Pan Alley buildings house street-level wholesale stores selling clothing, jewelry and fabrics; eight apartment units fill the upper floors.
It's a noisy neighborhood, with trucks beeping as they back up amid street hawkers selling bootleg movies and knockoff perfumes. A century ago, the windows of music companies broadcast a cacophony of competing piano sounds that earned the area the nickname Tin Pan Alley, to describe what one journalist said sounded like pounding on tin pans.
Leland Bobbe, a 59-year-old photographer, has been renting his apartment at Remick's old building since 1975. He says it's important to salvage the buildings in a neighborhood "that has lost its uniqueness. It's just another symbol of what New York was and what it will no longer be."
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Nov 11 2008
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's smaller version, the Chamber Orchestra, opens its season this week with Andres Cardenes (right) conducting, and I ran a story about just what the small deal is all about.
Detailed within: why you would be missing a great deal of good music if you skip these concerts and think the big Mellon Grand Classics at Heinz Hall are automatically better. Bottom line, you want both in your life if you are a orchestral classical music fan (and there's also occasionally great chamber music mixed in).
Nov 10 2008
A hearty welcome to the newest Pittsburgh ensemble, the Pittsburgh Gospel Choir and its music director Herbert Jones.
If you didn't have a chance to read it, please check out my piece on it in Sunday's paper, and the unique role of the River City Brass Band has played in its formation.
Nov 10 2008
Sorry to see that the Opera Lady will leave Pittsburgh Opera. Beth Parker has been such a resource for me, in addition to all the work she has done for the community. The real secret is, she had a full-time job of other duties at the Opera! How she managed to do all the Opera Lady work (phone calls and appearances) is beyond me. Her time here also saw the expansion of notes in the programs, which is a great thing.
I have said many times that roles like hers are crucial for the future of opera and classical music, so let's hope we see more of them even as she moves on to an new life chapter.
Nov 06 2008
The Pittsburgh Opera's production of "Grapes of Wrath" is soon upon us, and I will be writing about it much more next week. But there are a few ways to get acquainted with it ahead of time.
First is an "Opera Up Close" event 12:45 p.m. this Saturday (Nov. 8) at the Pittsburgh Opera's building (2425 Liberty Ave. in the Strip District), with composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Michael Korie discussing and performing parts of the opera. It is free.
There also is a recording of the first version of "Grapes" out on a small label called PS Classics. It is generally quite good, although the version you will hear in Pittsburgh is substantially different as Gordon has revised the opera. Interestingly, the label "celebrat[es] the heritage of Broadway and popular song. It's a perfect summation of how Gordon's work (and his output in general), blurs the rather artificial lines between opera and music theater, at least how they have existed in new composition over the last 25 years or so. As Gordon told me, "Grapes" is "a melange of American vernacular," says Gordon. "It runs the gamut from traditional opera to blues and Appalachian music."
Lastly, "great care" is being taken by the Pittsburgh Opera to make the breastfeeding scene at the end as tasteful and "beatific" as possible, says Beth Parker, the Opera Lady. The Rosasharn. Danielle Pastin, "will be wearing a prosthetic breast made by a theater person at CMU." The photo on right is from Minnesota Opera, without the prosthetic. Either way, talk about a moving visual.
Nov 05 2008
The Orange County Register today reported that the Santa Ana-based Opera Pacific "will cancel the remainder of its 2008-2009 season and will likely close down operations for good."
That is bad news for the O.C., but also for composer Ricky Ian Gordon, whose new opera "The Grapes of Wrath" was to play there this season. Gordon still is holding out hope, but a West Coast premiere might now have to happen at another opera house.
but you can hear "Grapes" in Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh Opera starting next week. We will have much coverage on it, so stay tuned.
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