Every summer Marita and I drive from Austin, Texas back to our native Canada, varying our route each year according to events of particular interest on the road and the availability of friends we enjoy visiting.

This year we decided to make a stop in Charlottesville, Virginia, a favourite place we hadn’t visited in too many years. This charming, lively, petite (pop: 40,000) mountain town is home to the University of Virginia where we fondly recalled once having inspected the tiny room inhabited by Edgar Allen Poe during his short tenure as a student here. The literary stature of Poe notwithstanding, Charlottesville is most famous for Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers and the third president of the United States.

Castleton Farms Home to Castleton Festival

As we plotted our route from Charlottesville to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, we decided it would be unconscionable to pass within a few miles of Lorin Maazel’s new Castleton Festival without seeing what all the excitement was about; with Maazel in mind, we set out along the back roads of western Virginia.

The town of Castleton turned out to be little more than a general store. Mostly, we were greeted by lush green rolling hills and farmland, with just enough signage to remind locals where they are and to give visitors the feeling that one wrong turn could get them hopelessly lost.

There were few signs directing one to the Castleton Festival. Upon arrival at what we took to be the festival headquarters, our first impression was that everyone had either gone for a walk in the woods or was attending to farm chores. We walked through the small lobby into a tiny jewel of a theatre. We could hardly believe that “La Bohème” had been performed here the day before. The pit could scarcely hold more than a dozen players and the house appeared to have no more than 100 seats.

Back outside, looking off the deck, we could see well-tended gardens and a pond in the distance. Further along the deck we could see a fair number of people in the cafeteria attached to the theatre. It was lunchtime and dozens of young people were either enjoying a meal or working away on laptops – some doing both at once. All in all, it was a beautiful estate, a glorious place for work and leisure.

We continued our explorations, looking now for someone in administration. Across the road from the theatre building was a small barn. Lots of out-of-state license plates in the driveway indicated visitors, but this was clearly a working farm. There were pigs in pens, some cattle, and a zebra – or was it a “zonkey?” Someone with a sense of humour had put up a sign describing an even more unusual animal on the premises – a zonkey – an exotic blend of donkey and zebra. There was even a picture to aid in recognition.

Next door, as we stepped out of the car, one of two young women walking towards us stopped to introduce herself as “one of the Maazel children” and kindly offered to find someone to help us. She disappeared through a hedge and emerged a few minutes later with a strikingly attractive woman, who introduced herself as Dietlinde Maazel. I knew that Dietlinde was the maestro’s wife of 23 years and that she was one of the masterminds of the festival. Lorin Maazel is the president and artistic director and she is vice-president and associate artistic director.

Ms. Maazel (photo: right) exuded tremendous pride in and enthusiasm for the Castleton Festival, and in spite of being interrupted in the middle of what must have been another hectic day, she offered to give us a tour of the facilities. The first thing she set us straight about was the role of the little theatre we had just seen. It was indeed the starting point for all the musical activities at Castleton Farms and many concerts had been held there over the years, and some of the festival’s chamber operas were still presented there.

The main festival performance space, which from the exterior looks like a massive modern barn, was just a half mile up the road. A barn as an opera venue? What an ingenious concept! We entered through the reception area, which had been set up for a gala dinner preceding the opening of “La Bohème” the night before, and then stepped into the auditorium, where a rehearsal for Ravel’s “L’enfant et les Sortilèges” was in progress.

This facility, we learned, had been completed just in time for this year’s Castleton Festival. The centre of attention was the very large performance space with ample backstage area for storing and moving sets, and a pit that seated about 100 musicians. While, for the time being, the 400 seats in the venue are little more than benches and the walls are bare, some upgrading will doubtless take place in years to come.

There was only piano accompaniment at this rehearsal, with the resident festival director, William Kerley, blocking moves for some of the soloists and chorus. Soprano Cecelia Hall, who sings the lead role of the child, sounded wonderful. All the voices projected easily from the stage.

Ms. Hall is typical of participants at the Castleton Festival. She, like most of the other 100 or so singers and the 89 members of the festival orchestra, is a young artist well into a professional career. In most cases, participants have completed their college or conservatory studies and have some professional experience. What they need to really advance their careers is more training from the best in the business, and this is the exceptional opportunity that the Castleton Festival provides: two months working almost daily with Maestro Lorin Maazel and his associates.

The Castleton Festival is a summer music school primarily for opera singers and orchestral players but also for stage directors and administrators. The intensive workload is undertaken in a very nurturing environment designed to enrich young lives. Married participants are encouraged to bring spouses and children, and all performers are housed either in buildings on the 600 acre Maazel farm property or at neighbouring farms. Ms. Maazel acknowledged that the responsibility of keeping track of the 200 plus young artists at Castleton Farms over the summer, particularly given the propensity of some for fast driving on winding country roads, was quite a challenge.

Castleton Festival participants, including singers and orchestra members, are often recruited personally by Maazel as he travels the world guest conducting. The current orchestra, for example, includes players from Qatar, Turkey, China and London.

As we watched the Ravel rehearsal with her, Ms. Maazel seemed to have all the time in the world to answer our questions and to point out the features of her festival, casually remarking at some point in our conversation that the Castleton Festival Orchestra and some of the singers had to be in Toronto, Canada the following evening for a major performance at the BlackCreek Festival, and that the ensemble of about 110 would be leaving that very night. Enviable calm under pressure!

We know that Lorin Maazel is a force of nature among conductors. At the age of 81 he is conducting as much as he ever did, and even finding time to compose and to create a new festival. In his wife Dietlinde, he has obviously found the ideal partner; a magic-making multi-tasker who also thrives on a busy schedule.

After Ms. Maazel’s gracious introduction, we came away anxious to hear a performance by the Castleton Festival participants. We didn’t have long to wait; we had only to drive to Toronto by the following night. A second incentive was the BlackCreek Festival itself, which had opened the week before with a highly-praised event featuring Placido Domingo. Garth Drabinsky’s enterprising new summer offering, the coming together of two major but very young festivals with very different visions – the Castleton, with a focus on mentoring young classical music talent and the BlackCreek, with a focus on big-name extravaganzas and music of many genres – is a new and exciting concept for Toronto.

Sky Traffic, Sound Technology and Top Dollar

I must admit that when I heard about plans for the BlackCreek Festival, I was skeptical. Who would want to pay high prices – $52-$135 for most concerts and a top price of $280 for Domingo – to sit outside on a tennis court listening to amplified classical music?

The Rexall Centre at York University was built to accommodate professional tennis tournaments and physically, it serves that purpose well; situated right under the flight path for landings at Pearson International Airport, however, the location surely cannot be considered ideal for tennis. If less than ideal for tennis, it should be disastrous for classical music performances. At the concert we attended, a plane whirred overhead every 3-4 minutes during one 20-minute period; fortunately, there were more quiet times than noisy during this concert. Clearly, the management of the BlackCreek Festival operates at the mercy of God and the air traffic controllers.

To be fair, however, summer concerts in the great outdoors cannot really be judged by indoor standards. The Ravinia Festival in Chicago has been thriving for decades in spite of the trains that pass by with annoying frequency. As a matter of fact, festival directors there recently made a virtue out of imperfect conditions by commissioning a series of new train-related compositions for the festival.

So…while one might wish the planes to be seen and not heard, does the Rexall Centre have some offsetting advantages?

Opening night at BlackCreek was apparently utter chaos due to the traffic congestion, whereas at the concert I attended, there was no trouble at all; that is, if you don’t mind paying $20 to park, then boarding a school bus to the venue itself. And did I mention that if it rains, ticket-buyers are just out of luck – no rain checks are given and no umbrellas are allowed in the facility.

What about that bane of music-lovers’ existence these days – miked singers and musicians? Amplifier technology has taken over Broadway to the point where genuine singing ability is almost irrelevant and ear-splitting volume is the norm. With 11,000 seats in the Rexall Centre, no shell to assist in the production of high-quality natural sound, and the aforementioned sky traffic, Drabinsky and Co. really had no choice; it was truly amplified sound or nothing.

I am happy to report that the BlackCreek Festival has achieved the impossible: amplified orchestral sound that gives us a reasonable facsimile of the real thing. To be sure, the harp and celesta in excerpts from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” were too loud, but otherwise there was warmth, nuance and depth in the string sound and timbral accuracy in the winds and brass. The volume was robust but never excessive.

Even more impressive, perfect for a concert in a venue such as this, was the imaginative use of video. On the big screen overhanging the stage we saw useful facial and profile shots of Maazel and of the vocal soloists positioned with the chorus behind the orchestra and all but invisible to the audience. Most importantly, we had close-ups of Dame Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons (photo: right) as they played a dozen different characters from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Without the video, the audience would have missed completely Irons’ vast range of facial expressions and the subtle interplay with Mirren.

Nor was this “basic video” to spice up the proceedings. Clearly, the video team had taken a great deal of time and trouble to match their shots to the words and the music. This was excellent work that would greatly enhance concert hall performances of similar repertoire.

Orchestra of Maazel’s Making

The Castleton Festival Orchestra had been virtually hand-picked by Maestro Maazel and had been working with him for several weeks. If it did not rise to the level of the New York Philharmonic, his most recent orchestra, it was nonetheless a fine body of players.

Maazel has long been known as a superior technician. His stick technique is clear and decisive and his knowledge of a vast repertoire is legendary. As Maazel ages, he seems less concerned with dazzling effects and more with beauty and expression. Watching him on the podium I am reminded of Fritz Reiner – not that I am old enough to have ever seen Reiner “live” – whose technique and demeanor, on DVDs and by reputation, was similar. Reiner never “acted out” the music and his face was virtually immobile. His expression was severe, to say the least, as Maazel’s, for the most part, is today. Such demeanor often elicits greater discipline and closer attention – even fear – on the part of the musicians, especially the young and impressionable.

Maazel like Reiner and all the best conductors, works out the thousands of details of phrasing, articulation and colour in rehearsal. When it comes to the performance what is needed most on the podium is accuracy, reliability and inspiration. Professional players can be depended upon to remember the details and execute them as agreed in rehearsal.

Under less than ideal concert conditions at the Rexall Centre, Maazel and the Castleton Festival Orchestra made music on a gratifyingly high level. The Prokofiev excerpts were powerful and exciting. Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Fantasy Overture was even better. Maazel had added some dynamics of his own to Tchaikovsky’s score, but they always made musical sense. Rhythms were crisp and the love music was as passionate as one could hope for. Maazel’s articulation of the final chords was unusual but compelling. The timpani crescendo at the end was brilliant.

There are no cheap effects in Mendelssohn’s “Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and any conductor who attempts to add them is looking for trouble. Maazel obviously loves this music and played it as Mendelssohn surely intended it to be played. His tempi for the Overture and the Scherzo were far slower than those chosen by many conductors who should know better, and to my ears, perfect. With slower tempi, there is time for accurate execution of the rhythms and accents, as well as time for expressive phrasing. Maazel brought out the beauty of the music without wallowing in romanticism.

Special mention should be made of Ottawa-born Joyce El-Khoury, (photo: right) one of Maazel’s favourite sopranos, who recently scored a major success as Mimi in his new production of “La Bohème” at Castleton. El-Khoury’s brief solos in the Mendelssohn had a youthful tone that was a joy to hear.

Mirren and Irons recounted the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” plot line for us and spoke some of its most memorable lines as they played the various characters. This play is magical in its exploration of young love and the interplay of human and supernatural forces. Irons amazed the audience with his command of accents and voices, and Mirren lived up to her reputation as one of the most skilled and versatile actresses of our time.

It was a glorious concert, with the music, poetry, actors and musicians all combining magnificently to overcome the risks of performing in an open air venue.

But did the people come? I would guess that there were fewer than 2,000 people in attendance on this night in a facility that holds 11,000, a much smaller audience than had shown up for Domingo on opening night.

I suspect that while we had the crème de la crème in Maazel, Mirren, Irons et. al., only the pop stars and classical superstars like Domingo will be able to fill a place as big as the Rexall, and at such inflated prices.

Something has got to give; either Drabinsky gives up trying to present classical music in such a venue or he drastically reduces the prices for such events.

Maazel in for More than a Midsummer’s Night at BlackCreek

As suggested earlier in this piece, the two festivals covered here are a study in contrasts but they also intersect in interesting ways.

Castleton is one artist’s vision of how to develop young talent. Maazel economizes by using his own property and a lot of his own money but the scope of the vision requires more resources in the long run. Maazel is thinking long-term. I note that on the Staff List for the BlackCreek Festival, Maazel is listed as “Artistic Advisor, Classical Programming.”

This is where Castleton and BlackCreek come together. Maazel wants the exposure that BlackCreek can give his young performers but he also needs the income. Fees from appearances such as this, beyond Castleton, surely help to subsidize the basic programme back home. On the basis of his reputation and contacts, Maazel has been able to set up similar arrangements in California (Berkeley), Maryland (Bethesda), Virginia (Manassas), and China (Beijing).

After all, it makes no economic sense to be mounting full-scale opera productions and concerts in Castleton with a large orchestra in a facility seating 400; only by repeating them elsewhere can the costs be recouped.

Castleton and BlackCreek are both exciting, new ventures, albeit it with very different goals. Time will tell whether their visionary founders have understood their markets and accurately crunched their numbers.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and ”Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music.” NEW for friends: The Art of the Conductor podcast, “Classical Airs.”

SUMMER FESTIVALS
 SHAW FESTIVAL, Niagara-on-the-Lake, 2010

Kurt Weill has always been an enigma for classical music lovers – his career started so propitiously: he studied composition first with Humperdinck, and later with Busoni; he turned out dozens of remarkably mature early works; his Symphony No. 2 was given its premiere by Bruno Walter; he made his mark in the German musical theatre too, first with The Threepenny Opera, and later with Mahagonny.

Then came Hitler and the Nazis, and in 1933 Weill was forced to flee Germany. He sent his parents to Palestine and he and his wife Lotte Lenya ended up in New York. For many of his admirers, this move to the United States marked the end of Weill’s career. He sold out to Broadway and never fulfilled his promise. He died of a heart attack at 50 (1950).

This characterization of a gifted and decent man’s career has always seemed to me grossly unfair and insensitive. When he came to America, Weill could have re-established himself as a “serious” composer, as Hindemith, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and many others had done, but already in Germany he was headed in a different direction. He was a theatre man through and through. He collaborated with Brecht, but never shared Brecht’s communist ideology. What he did share was a fascination with words and music and with the wondrous resources of musical theatre.

We forget that Broadway in the 1930s and 1940s was a pretty wondrous place too, with some of the best minds in literature, art and music working together to create a unique genre – American musical comedy. Weill leapt at the chance to contribute to this uniquely American musical theatre. As a man escaping government oppression, Weill had no difficulty understanding and appreciating the commercialism of Broadway. In no time at all, he established himself as one of Broadway’s leading composers, a standing he held for the rest of his life.

In many respects, the current production of Weill’s One Touch of Venus at the Shaw Festival, is a typical Broadway show of the period (1943) with a simple and amusing story line; bright, hummable songs; a few big dance numbers; and sparkling dialogue.

As did many Broadway musicals, One Touch of Venus went through a convoluted gestation. Weill had been in New York eight years when he wrote this show, but he still had strong European connections; so it was that he wanted Marlene Dietrich for the leading role, composed some of the music specifically for her, and pursued her personally to accept the role. He had probably seen her in the 1932 German film Die Blonde Venus and believed that image to be ideal for his “Broadway” Venus.

In the end, Dietrich declined and the ultimate Venus of the show’s Broadway opening was Mary Martin. One could hardly imagine two more different choices for the same role – the one legendary for her sensuality – bedroom eyes, voice and body – and the other a tomboyish American “girl next door!” Consider also that the director of the first production was Elia Kazan, not renowned for productions that had people falling out of their seats. The choice of Kazan suggests Weill’s musical had a certain seriousness of purpose.

With this background in mind it became a little difficult to accept the ‘slapstick’ approach adopted by director Eda Holmes for the Shaw Festival production. It’s true that the show abounds in one-liners – what would we expect from Ogden Nash – known for his poetic wit – and S.J. Perelman, a man who had written several of the Marx Brothers films. But I think Mark N. Grant comes closer to Weill’s vision when he writes in the Shaw Festival programme: “Venus is golden age Broadway’s reply to the sex comedy of filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch” – the point being that Lubitsch’s characters more often raise eyebrows than slip on banana peels.

Even more importantly, Weill’s music is shapely and interesting and requires the best voices that can be found. It didn’t get them in this production.

Robin Evan Willis was attractive, but failed to project the required fascination of the character – after all she is the Venus of the famed statue come to life and on the prowl – and the quality of her singing was inconsistent. She did pretty well with the low-key “That’s Him,” but far less well with “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” and “Speak Low.”

As Rodney Hatch, Kyle Blair showed some comic flair but little sophistication, and his singing voice was barely adequate. In fact, the more I think about the beauty of songs like “Speak Low,” the more inadequate it becomes. It didn’t help that Ryan Desouza’s 10-piece orchestra was consistently too loud, even when playing soft accompaniments. How do they do that? Is it insensitivity, or the fault of the sound system?

The Shaw Festival and its artistic director Jackie Maxwell are to be applauded for extending their mandate to include plays and musicals contemporaneous with Shaw. Happily, one detects also a desire to do such works in more or less, period style – that is to say, as they were done in the first instance.

Naturally, directors and performers are allowed and even encouraged to “refresh” these period pieces, but what the Shaw Festival has earned over the years is a respect for its understanding of this period and style and one expects to see it on display in most productions at Niagara-on-the-Lake. Shaw, Wilde, Coward, etc. are performed on stages around the world, but at the Shaw Festival they are produced and performed by ‘experts’ and we love them for that.

The current season’s production of Wilde’s An Ideal Husband is a case in point. For the most part, the cast – most notably Stephen Sutcliffe as Viscount Goring – and the production, were superb. To my mind, however, some of the costumes seemed unnecessarily “refreshed,” and the original, pseudo-tango score by John Gzowski, while cleverly evoking one of the plot elements (Argentina), erred on the side of being pervasively dark and menacing, whereas the play itself remains a near-perfect combination of wit and menace. Had Gzowski studied Argentinian tangos more closely, he might have discovered that the best of these also miraculously combine these two ingredients.

All in all, I was delighted to have had the rare opportunity to see a live production of One Touch of Venus. Eda Holmes and her colleagues certainly gave us an entertaining evening in the theatre. While I left the Royal George Theatre amused, however, I also left convinced that that the production could have been different and it could have been better.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com. NEW For friends: “CLASSICAL AIRS,” The Art of the Conductor podcast!

Photo (shawfest.com): Robin Evan Willis as Venus and Kyle Blair as Rodney Hatch

SUMMER FESTIVALS
FESTIVAL ORFORD 2010

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) is an orchestra without a home – at least in the summertime. For some years now, it has been trying to cobble together a summer work schedule that would satisfy its commitments to players, its financial responsibilities, and the larger Quebec area’s classical music-loving public.

OSM’s latest experiment took place this past week at Festival Orford, both at Orford itself and in the nearby town of Magog, one of Quebec’s prime destinations for summer vacationers. Is this the answer for the perpetually itinerant OSM? Maybe yes, and maybe no; it is a complicated matter and there are no simple answers.

The recent summer history of the OSM has the band playing at the Lanaudière Festival in Joliette  for several seasons, and for the past two years at the Knowlton Festival in L’Estrie (Eastern Townships).

The OSM could give more concerts at Lanaudière, but music director Kent Nagano is busy in Munich during July and unavailable for Lanaudière engagements. Personally, I don’t understand why that should be an issue. Whereas Nagano’s unavailability continues to be offered up as a reason why the OSM cannot do more at Lanaudière, many of the major orchestras on the global stage either use guest conductors in the summer or appoint summer festival music directors.

And Knowlton? This festival got off to an impressive start using a bel canto theme, then suddenly ground to a halt. Knowlton Festival organizers put out a statement that provided no explanation at all, and gave no indication of total abdication, but one suspects that this festival has no future. Although original and inspired, the bel canto concept was a somewhat esoteric choice for a place like Knowlton, and it is not surprising that audiences for most of the programmed concerts were sparse. The theme was modified in the second season, but costs continued to escalate and many concerts failed to attract large audiences even in an 800-seat facility. The whole project made neither artistic nor economic sense.

Goodbye Knowlton – Hello Magog: OSM and Orford Courting!

Enter Orford. The Orford Arts Centre (OAC) has been one of Canada’s leading summer music schools for many decades. In recent years, however, it has lost some of its momentum and prestige and financial problems have forced the OAC to rethink its mission.

Last year, conductor and Nagano protegé Jean-François Rivest was appointed OAC artistic director, and with the OSM once again searching for a summer home, an OAC-OSM collaboration – a one week festival tacked on to Orford’s usual summer season, featuring Nagano and the OSM – quite naturally materialized.

Since the hall in the OAC itself has too few seats to support concerts by a fully professional orchestra, it was decided that the OSM would play in nearby Magog, at Église Saint-Patrice (Saint Patrick’s Church). In addition to the OSM, which was scheduled for three concerts, other performers would include pianists Till Fellner, Peter Serkin and Mari Kodama (Mrs. Kent Nagano), violinist Christian Tetzlaff, clarinetist-composer Jörg Widmann, soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, and Tafelmusik – a pretty impressive lineup at any festival.

Sold Out Concerts Signal a Potentially Profitable Union

On the face of it, this hastily-conceived festival was a huge success. The church seats about 1,000 people and the two concerts I attended appeared to be all but sold out.

Some of the performances I heard were outstanding, including an impassioned reading of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto by Tetzlaff and Nagano, and a wonderfully poetic and well-played Brahms Serenade No. 1 by Nagano and the OSM. The last concert – a solid sell-out – featured Till Fellner playing Schumann with Nagano and the OSM.

Undoubtedly, this new OSM week at Orford is much cheaper to operate than the Knowlton Festival. In Knowlton, land had to be purchased, an elaborate tent facility rented, a complex school bus shuttle system set up, and an audience had to be found in a town of only a few thousand souls even in the tourist season. In Magog, on the other hand, festival organizers could construct a concert platform inside the church and draw on a much larger and more vibrant community for support. Smaller concerts could be held in the already existing Gilles Lefebre Concert Hall in the Orford Arts Centre. Another positive factor: the provincial and federal arts councils already support the Orford Festival and the OSM and would likely see this new collaboration as “win-win” for both organizations.

Standards of Excellence: What Does This Festival Want to Be?

Before all involved in mounting this festival rush to self-congratulatory mode, they should pause to review what went wrong as well as what went right with this opening season in Magog. For example, the first concert I attended was given by the newly-created Orford Academy Orchestra (OAO) conducted by Nagano. Orford has once again gone in the direction of having a training orchestra as part of its activities. All well and good. This kind of orchestra has been used as the cost-effective basis for music festivals all over the world: Aspen, Verbier, and Schleswig-Holstein, for example – all three with outstanding training orchestras by any standard. Quite frankly, at least on its initial showing, the Orford Academy Orchestra, though it could be, was not in the same class.

On paper, this concert provided excellent stylistic challenges for young musicians. It began with a recent work called Armonia by German composer Jörg Widmann. This piece featured the glass harmonica, a most unusual instrument dating back to Mozart’s time. Then Widmann appeared as soloist in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. The concert ended with Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 (“Rhenish”). With this programming and Nagano on the podium, it appeared that the OAO would be probing three different musical idioms in one concert, and gaining tremendously from the experience.

The evening got off to an excellent start with a performance of Armonia that appeared to meet all the considerable demands of the score. Then, with the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, the concert really ran off the rails.

Nagano and Widmann at Odds in Mozart

Widmann and Nagano appeared to be playing in two different styles. Widmann is an excellent musician, but his approach could be characterized as aggressively modern. His technique is superb, but his sound is penetrating and hard, and he studiously avoided adding period embellishments of any kind. Nagano, on the other hand, seemed to be after some sort of re-creation of period style.

If Widmann was masculine in his approach, Nagano was feminine, stressing delicacy and lightness. He had obviously told his players to avoid the first beat of the bar accents and to play ‘across the bar lines’; as a result, the music lacked a rhythmic spine and the playing often sounded confused. For example, the main theme of the last movement was played totally differently by orchestra members and soloist. Widmann played his notes short but the violins played them long. The less said about the quality of the horn playing, the better.

Tricky St. Patrick’s Acoustics Contribute to Shaky Schumann

The Schumann had good and bad moments. The first movement was taken so fast, that it was reduced to musical gibberish. The acoustics were partly to blame. Churches are notoriously reverberant and the young musicians obviously had trouble hearing each other. If Nagano did take the acoustics into account, his adjustments clearly did not work. The second movement was similarly troubled as the musicians tried to keep their contrapuntal lines together. The final three movements fared better, with some fine, sensitive playing in the ‘Cologne Cathedral’ movement and a touch of exuberance in the finale. But again, the quality of the playing was uneven, and a quality that one takes for granted in youth orchestras – enthusiasm – was only rarely evident. One of the front-desk string players rarely moved his bow more than about six inches no matter what the volume of the music.

Kent Nagano has had a very busy week. In addition to his three concerts in Magog, he conducted two concerts at Lanaudière. If you factor in all the rehearsals for the five concerts he conducted – all completely different programmes, by the way – and the driving back and forth required, one wonders whether he really spent enough time working with the Orford Academy Orchestra. I don’t know what preceded it, but I do know that the last rehearsal before the concert was led not by Nagano, but by Rivest. Was Nagano really being fair to the young musicians by spreading himself so thin? One also has to wonder whether Nagano has any affinity for training student orchestras; perhaps his skills lie elsewhere.

Looking Forward to Next Summer

At the very least, festival organizers ought to reconsider a number of issues relating to the student orchestra programme. Is it a sound idea to present concerts in the same hall, under the same conductor, on successive nights by a dodgy student orchestra (OAO) and the internationally-recognized OSM? If the student orchestra is an integral part of the festival, and the festival aspires to be world class, can organizers be satisfied with a student orchestra that does not meet the standards of similar major festivals around the world? If not, what can be done to raise the standard? A more rigorous audition process? More rehearsal? More involved conductors?

St. Patrick’s Church is a venerable institution dating back to 1894. It is a landmark in the Magog area and many festivals are regularly giving concerts in much worse places. It is always a problem to fit an orchestra around choir stalls, altars and pulpits in such places, and the lack of air conditioning can make old churches exceedingly uncomfortable. Given the physical constraints at St. Patrick’s, it is simply not possible to get more than about sixty players on the stage. This means that Mahler, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, etc are out of the question in this venue; nevertheless, everything considered, it is a useful facility and I suspect that those who attended this year’s concerts would happily return for more.

Has the OSM Finally Found the Perfect Partner?

Magog has never, I believe, been known as a ‘classical’ cultural mecca. Most people come here to enjoy swimming and boating on beautiful Lake Memphremagog, listening to rock, or country and western on the waterfront, or a beer and a burger in one of the many restaurants and bars in the downtown area.

But Magog has something to satisfy other tastes as well. There is the excellent Owl’s Bread Bakery and Restaurant for great coffee and bistro fare, and there are upscale restaurants such as Cavallini’s, both within a few blocks of St. Patrick’s.

Judging from the sold-out performances this opening season, there is obviously also an audience for classical music in Magog and as the festival grows, it could work with the community to create a true festival ambiance beyond the confines of St. Patrick’s.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com. NEW For friends: “CLASSICAL AIRS,” The Art of the Conductor podcast!

Photo by Marita

SUMMER FESTIVALS
ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL

After a few days in Vail enjoying the music-making of Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Marita and I drove over to Aspen, about 100 miles away through the mountains. What we found there was a much older community and a festival and school operating on an equally high artistic plane but with a more varied range of goals and activities. True, Aspen has been in the news lately for its administrative infighting which saw music director and conductor David Zinman suddenly resign, and president Alan Fletcher emerge as the man in charge going forward, but on the basis of the two concerts I heard – actually one concert and a dress rehearsal – Aspen is maintaining its status as one of the world’s great oases of musical nurture and development.

Aspen Festival Over Half Century Old!

The Aspen Festival was founded in 1949, and in its formative years it was a philosophy rather than a full-fledged festival. What came to be called “The Aspen Idea” meant a place where people could develop in body, mind and spirit. Soon there was a school and more and more concerts and a performing space was built based on a design by the legendary Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. As a Finnish-Canadian, Marita took special pleasure in discovering this fact about Aspen.

Saarinen’s tent was replaced by a more permanent structure designed by Herbert Bayer and Fritz Benedict in 1965, and then in 1999 an even more elaborate building was erected – the Benedict Music Tent – designed by architect Harry Teague and acoustician Larry Kirkegaard. The “tent” had now become a 2,000 seat concert hall with a stage spacious enough to accommodate a large orchestra and chorus. An unusual feature of the construction is the tensioned membrane ceiling created by Birdair. The material, known as fiberglass fabric membrane, lets the light in but keeps out the heat of the sun, and apparently does no harm to the acoustics. The sound in the Benedict Music Tent is far more reverberant than one would expect and the overall effect in the two performances I heard – one by a string quartet and the other by a large orchestra – was very impressive.

Chamber Music in 2000 Seat Hall Acoustically Sound!

The Emerson Quartet presented a programme devoted to music by Dvorák, Barber and Shostakovich. I feared their sound might be lost in so large a hall, but that was not the case; possibly the effect of a wooden semicircular baffle placed behind them. I was delighted to hear the Emerson playing some of my favourite music: Dvorák’s “Cypresses.” These pieces began their lives as songs, and years later Dvorák reworked them for string quartet. Dvorák was a master of string quartet writing and these are some of his most beautiful works. To really appreciate them, the proactive listener would be richly rewarded by comparing the two versions of each piece.

“Cypresses” was followed by Dvorák’s String Quartet in E flat major Op. 51, to my mind not one of his best. Nonetheless, the Emerson Quartet gave it the careful preparation and total commitment it gives to every piece it plays.

After intermission came the original version of Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” Coincidentally, I was to hear the more popular string orchestra version played by the Dallas Symphony in Vail the following night. Both versions are effective but in quite different ways. The quartet version has its own special intimacy, while the orchestra version has a strength and power which cannot be achieved by four players.

Finally, the Emerson played the String Quartet No. 9 Op. 117 by Shostakovich. Its last movement is one of the most exciting in any of the composer’s fifteen string quartets, and the Emerson played it superbly. The chordal pizzicati rang out with accuracy and authority and the contrapuntal writing had boundless energy. The Emerson Quartet brought the audience to its feet and then let it down gently and eloquently with an excerpt from Bach’s “A Musical Offering.”

Open Rehearsal with Hans Graf and soloist Gil Shaham

The next morning I was back in the Benedict Music Tent for the dress rehearsal of a concert by the Aspen Chamber Symphony (ACS) under the direction of Hans Graf, music director of the Houston Symphony. The ACS is one of three Aspen orchestras and each one is a remarkable ensemble. They combine well-known principal players from orchestras around the world and gifted students who have auditioned and succeeded in being accepted at Aspen.

ACS concertmaster is Alexander Kerr, Professor of Violin at Indiana University, and former concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Principal second violin is Espen Lilleslåtten, concertmaster of the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway, and principal clarinet is Theodore Oien who holds the same position in the Detroit Symphony. All the members of the American Brass Quintet teach at the Aspen School and play in one of the orchestras…and on it goes.

The Aspen orchestras also have a Canadian component. Principal clarinet in the Aspen Festival Orchestra is Joaquin Valdepeñas of the Toronto Symphony, and principal horn is John Zirbel of the Montreal Symphony.

“Composer in Residence” Christopher Rouse Takes Notes

One of the highlights of the dress rehearsal was the opportunity to hear “Odna Zhizn” (A Life) by Christopher Rouse with the composer in attendance and basically supervising the performance. “Odna Zhizn” was conceived as a tribute to Natasha, a Russian friend of the composer. Rouse has said that the piece functions “both as the public portrayal of an extraordinary life as well as a private love letter.” The work had its premiere just a few months ago by Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic.

Like all of Rouse’s orchestral music it is dazzling in its orchestration and dramatically powerful. Rouse seemed generally happy with what he heard and at this final stage of rehearsal only made a few comments about balance. It certainly seemed to me that Hans Graf and the Aspen Chamber Symphony had prepared the piece very well indeed.

Sheer Joy: Shaham Shares Talent and Temperament

The other major work was the Brahms Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham (photo: above) as soloist. Shaham has been coming to Aspen regularly since his student years and he is particularly renowned for his interpretation of this piece.

Now 39 years old, Shaham still exudes a youthful wonder at the world around him. As the orchestra plays the introduction to the first movement, Shaham looks at the conductor and at members of the orchestra as if to say “How can it be so beautiful?” And Shaham’s attitude is as infectious as I am sure it is intended to be. The players in return re-examine the music they are playing as if they had never seen it before, and can’t believe what they are seeing and hearing.

It almost goes without saying that Shaham’s violin playing was joyous and nearly impeccable. But it should be said that while he and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, whom I heard perform in Vail, share an intense commitment to music, they are very different personalities and interpreters. Salerno-Sonnenberg seems to bare her soul in everything she plays, and doesn’t hesitate to go to the dark side if she thinks the music requires it. Shaham, on the other hand, is more of a classicist. It is simply not part of his DNA to personalize the music. Fortunately, there is room for both types of performers in classical music.

Aspen, Colorado: So Much More to Offer than Slopes!

Like Vail, Aspen is primarily a skiing destination. Because of its limited size – it has mountains on three sides – with the crowds that come in winter and more recently in summer too, it is a very expensive place to live. There are only about 6,000 residents and many of them are jetsetters on the order of Michael Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Jack Nicholson and Charlie Sheen. And they generally arrive in Aspen in private jets, dozens of which were parked at the Aspen Airport during my visit. The people who have to earn a living in Aspen mostly live in less glamorous towns nearby.

The Aspen music festival runs for eight weeks and involves about 700 students and 150 faculty, but it’s not the only act in town. Every summer, the very prestigious Aspen Institute attracts many of the most famous minds in politics, economics and the media, The recent Aspen Ideas Festival featured the likes of Bill Gates, Thomas Friedman, Alan Greenspan, David Gergen, and Arianna Huffington.

For Those Wanting More…

The Emerson Quartet recorded all the Shostakovich string quartets in 2000, and they are available in a boxed set as DG 463 2842 2. If you want to hear exactly what Shostakovich had in mind, investigate the recordings by the Beethoven Quartet; this is the ensemble which premiered most of Shostakovich’s string quartets. Their recordings, made between 1956 and 1974, had the approval of the composer. They are now available in a boxed set from DOREMI as DHR-7911-5, and the remastering and restoration work done by Jacob Harnoy is excellent.

Dvorák’s Op. 51 and “Cypresses” are included in the latest Emerson release as DG 477 8765 5. Gil Shaham has a DVD of the Brahms Violin Concerto with Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, recorded at a concert given in Palermo in 2002 (EuroArts 2051987).

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com. NEW For friends: The Art of the Conductor podcast!

Photo by Marita

SUMMER FESTIVALS BRAVO!
BRAVO! VAIL VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVAL

Imagine a music festival that features three of the world’s top orchestras in successive week-long residencies. Throw into the mix the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Gil Shaham. Shake things up with some of the best conductors at work today: Jaap van Zweden, Alan Gilbert, Charles Dutoit, and Marin Alsop. And don’t forget to add lots of chamber music. Set all this talent up in one of the most spectacular mountain locations you can think of – say, Vail, Colorado – and run your festival for about six weeks. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But of course, who could afford to do it.

That is the question that kept crossing my mind as I sat in my seat at the awkwardly-named Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival: “How could anyone or any group of people find the money to mount such a festival, especially in the depths of a recession when every arts organization in the country is cutting back or packing it in?” But Bravo! is not a misguided new venture; this festival has been going strong for 23 years. So how do they do it?

It is surely true that Vail must have some of the most dedicated music lovers in the world. It must also be true that these extraordinary music lovers have the financial means to bring their dreams to life.

Classical Music on a Movie Set?

The town of Vail is almost a Disney version of an alpine ski village – charming Swiss chalets bedecked with flower boxes, bustling boutiques, cosy eateries. Since 1962 when it was created, Vail has become an increasingly popular “destination.”

Skiers flock to Vail by the thousands to enjoy some of the best downhill skiing in the world. Après-ski, they gather in their beautifully appointed chalets or in the fine restaurants, bars and upscale stores that abound in the village.

Everything in Vail is carefully managed to maintain the unified Swiss-style, tourist-friendly look. Yes, you will find a McDonald’s here, artfully camouflaged to blend with the alpine character of the buildings and the well-manicured streets. Even cars are controlled in Vail – one doesn’t really need one to get around. The village is compact enough so that one can walk from one end to the other without much effort. For those who are a little less energetic, there is a free shuttle bus that provides an excellent alternative. In the summer, the village and the area’s many mountain paths attract thousands of cyclists and hikers. For those who like some culture with their outdoor activities, there is the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival.

Dallas Symphony Bravo’s Opening Orchestral Act

I visited Vail for the opening concerts of Bravo! 2010. I just missed Yo-Yo Ma in recital, but arrived in time to hear the first of six orchestral concerts to be performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO). The DSO will be followed later in the season by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic in a similar residency.

One might wonder how the Dallas Symphony gets to share the spotlight with two orchestras generally touted as being in another league – certainly true as far as budgets go!

Among the highlights of the two Dallas Symphony concerts I heard in Vail were the Brahms’ Second Symphony, in which the string playing had a dynamic range and a richness that would be the envy of any orchestra; a high-speed Beethoven Fifth that reflected Maestro van Zweden’s fascination with the Gardiner-Harnoncourt original instrument movement; and an extraordinary interpretation of Barber’s Violin Concerto featuring Nadja-Salerno Sonnenberg.

I have heard Ms. Sonnenberg play this Barber concerto many times with different orchestras and conductors and each time I marvel at how deeply she probes the piece. In Jaap van Zweden, she had not only a friend and former class-mate, but an ideal collaborator. Both she and van Zweden – former concert master of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in The Netherlands – studied with the legendary Dorothy Delay in New York at about the same time and went on to make recordings of the Barber Violin Concerto.

In short, the Dallas Symphony, under Jaap van Zweden, is the equal of many of the finest orchestras in the world. There is, however, another reason why the Dallas Symphony belongs in Vail. This town has long been a favourite getaway destination for Texans: skiing in the winter and cooler and drier weather in the summer. To accommodate these Texas patrons, American Airlines even operates two daily non-stops from Dallas to Vail (actually nearby Eagle County Airport).

Challenges of Outdoor Venues Part of Summer Music Fest Fun!

One always has to make allowances for summer concerts. Even at the best facilities, weather and various distractions are inescapable factors. Vail is no different. The idea is to get away from the formality of winter season concerts in enclosed concert halls, and enjoy the beauties of nature with fine music filling the air. So what if the birds often add their voices to the soundscape (Tanglewood, Ravinia, Vail, etc.)? So what if commuter trains often intrude (Ravinia)? So what if traffic from I-70 sometimes makes its presence felt (Vail)?

The weather is unpredictable everywhere, but this year in Vail (and Aspen) the rains came almost every day, and often just when they could cause the most trouble. Lots of walking is required to get from buses and cars to the Ford Amphitheater in Vail and on the way to our first concert, Marita and I got thoroughly soaked. Fortunately, our seats were under cover – by the end of the concert we were dry again! – but how about those with lawn tickets? The first half-hour of the concert was accompanied by pouring rain! Well, the downpour seemed to be part of the experience for the lawn-folk; most came well-prepared with head to toe raingear and plastic sheets to put under and over themselves. And most seemed to be heartily enjoying the event!

Good Sound, Decent Ticket Prices, Glorious Scenery: Bravo, Vail!

What about the facility itself? It is much smaller than most of the summer concert venues used by the big orchestras – the Atlanta Symphony, for example, recently moved into a new summer home seating 12,000. The Vail facility – The Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater – seats about 1,200 and there is room on the lawn for about 1,200 more. This means that even the folks on the lawn are getting a pretty intimate experience.

The Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater was designed by Morter Architects of Vail and it could be characterized as elegant and graceful. There are five large wood ceiling panels, seemingly floating in air over the stage and audience area, and there are large spaces behind and beside the stage to reveal the ski slopes and trees characteristic of Vail. There does not appear to be much in the design that enhances the acoustics. In fact, executive director John W. Giovando informed me that on-going concern with regard to the acoustics has precipitated discussion of adding a solid back wall to the facility. But in the meantime, the sound system is quite good, and patrons under cover and on the lawn seemed generally pleased with what they were hearing.

I hate to keep coming back to money matters, but money does matter to nearly everything in life. There is no getting around it; the economics of the festival don’t make much sense. I have already mentioned the cost of bringing in large and famous orchestras for weeks at a time. And the venue is too small to generate much revenue. So the ticket prices would have to be astronomical, right? Wrong. For the Dallas Symphony concerts, the top price was a mere $65, very low by either winter or summer standards. Top price at Tanglewood this season is $89 and even higher for special events and at nearby Aspen orchestral concerts are priced at $70 and higher. To be fair, however, one must note that ticket prices for both the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic concerts – which perform at the height of the summer season in Vail – are higher.

Looking at the festival economics from another perspective, we should all be grateful to the folks who live in Vail and who care enough about music to support it for themselves, for their community, and for the tourists who have come to realize that Vail is a unique and magical place, not only in winter but in summer too!

Bravo! Artistic Director Eugenia Zuckerman Plays Mozart

Flutist Eugenia Zukerman has been artistic director of Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival for the past 13 years and this season she is stepping down. Among her farewell concerts was an appearance as soloist in Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis, in a Bravo! concert with the Dallas Symphony, conducted by Jaap van Zweden.

Zukerman is largely responsible for putting together artists and programmes for the six-week festival and by all accounts she has done fine work. She will be succeeded next season by another well-known performer, pianist Anne-Marie Mcdermott.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com.

Photo by Marita

SUMMER FESTIVALS
Round Top Festival Institute, 2010

Never underestimate the dreams of a concert pianist – especially those of an adopted son of Texas!

Van Cliburn, you say? Yes, he had an impossible dream and realized it when he won the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow in 1958, but there is another, lesser-known, Texas pianist who dreamed big and succeeded; James Dick, who was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, attended the University of Texas, and has lived in Texas ever since, built his own concert hall and music festival, in one of the least likely places – Round Top, Texas, population 77.

Each summer, the Round Top Festival Institute brings together 85 gifted young musicians with a faculty comprised mostly of leading members of the Dallas and Houston Symphony Orchestras. This year, the little festival that could – and did – celebrated its fortieth anniversary.

Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Some Rarely Heard Classical Treasures

The afternoon concert I attended was conducted by Christoph Campestrini of Austria and featured music by Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

I found the playing of these young musicians not only enthusiastic, but remarkably secure – even virtuosic, when called for by the music. The horn solo in the slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony was played flawlessly and with unusual maturity, and the double bass playing was exceptional for its beauty of tone and accuracy of intonation. And what a concertmaster! Nazig Tchakarian led with both grace and commitment. She will be an asset to any orchestra she chooses to join. Brahms’ Double Concerto featured two outstanding faculty members – violinist Federico Agostini and cellist Emilio Colón – and the orchestra provided a well-balanced accompaniment.

The evening concert featured a mix of faculty artists and outstanding students in music that for the most part is rarely heard. I had never come across D’Indy’s “Chanson et Danses for Wind Septet,” Op. 80 and was mesmerized by its Straussian sonorities and by its freshness. The figuration given to the two clarinets in the second movement had to be heard to be believed. Jean-Michel Damase’s “17 Variations for Wind Quintet,” Op.22 was equally inventive, with a healthy dose of humor added for good measure.

James Dreamed a Dream…

Having last visited Round Top many years ago, I was not prepared for the current quality of musicianship or for the uniqueness of the surroundings. The Festival Concert Hall, as I remember it, was very much a work in progress. It was little more than a barn with chairs, and plastic ones at that. Now it is a real and magnificent concert space seating about 1,100.

The concert hall grew with the festival itself. Instead of raising millions of dollars and then building the hall all at once, James Dick and his supporters built what they could each successive year with the money they had in the bank. Construction began in 1981 and continued until the concert space was essentially complete in 2007. James Dick is a dreamer but also a patient man: the important thing was not to do it quickly but to do it properly, and to do it without going bankrupt.

The Townsfolk Made That Dream a Reality…

The hall’s interior is constructed entirely of wood. And while the intricate designs were all selected by Dick, they were carved and put into place by local folk. The master carpenter was Larry Birkelbach, whose mentor was Arnold Prosifka.

One’s first impression of the Festival Concert Hall is of a church somewhere in Europe – perhaps Eastern Europe. But there is no altar. Only a stage designed for music. No acoustician is credited with designing the hall, but whoever conceived it got it exactly right. Individual instrumental timbres are accurate and clear in both soft and loud passages, and there is plenty of bass response. The hall easily supports both the large orchestra I heard in the afternoon concert, and the chamber ensemble I heard in the evening.

At the rear of the hall there are a small gift shop and two modest, but fascinating, museums. The day I visited, there were well-informed docents in each museum to guide patrons through the wonders close at hand.

The first museum is devoted to David Guion (1892-1981). Don’t know the name? Well, he was famous in his day and his music will probably live forever. He was the man who wrote “Home on the Range” and the “Yellow Rose of Texas.” He was born in West Texas, but lived most of his working life as a composer in New York. In later years, he lived in Dallas. The ‘Texas Cowboy Composer’ he was called, and the room is filled with his music, recordings, photos and furniture.

The other museum is equally fascinating. Did you know there was Swedish royalty living in La Grange near Round Top, Texas? Catharina Oxehufwud and her husband Olof lived there years ago and many of their personal items have found their way into the museum. Among them is a beautiful chest dating from 1635.

There’s more. James Dick’s Round Top property has grown to 200 acres and includes many more buildings: Menke House – moved from its original site in nearby Hempstead; the Edythe Bates Old Chapel – formerly Travis Street Methodist Church in La Grange; and several residences for students and faculty.

The Dream Realized: A Gift that Will Hopefully Keep on Giving

The Festival Institute has quite literally put the town of Round Top on the map. It is now a destination – with shops featuring the work of local artists and craftsmen; excellent restaurants; and B&Bs for those staying overnight – rather than a town with barely more than a post office and a gas station. Certainly, local folk patronize these businesses, but surely concert traffic can’t be discounted.

And yet, getting patrons to drive the 100 miles or so from either Austin or Houston is not as easy as it might seem. Day-trippers will find the festival attractive for afternoon concerts, but evening performances – unless one is staying overnight – perhaps not so much. Leaving Round Top, post-concert, at 10 pm to drive a second-class highway for 1 ½ to two hours may be an unwelcome challenge for many music-lovers; the evening concert I attended had an audience of approximately 50 – granted, the program was somewhat esoteric – whereas for the afternoon concert, the hall was about 70% full!

Perhaps the way to go, whenever possible, is to avoid presenting evening concerts at this festival. And why aren’t there more Sunday concerts? Surely Sunday afternoon is prime time for concerts at a summer music festival!

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com.

Photo by Marita

Classical Travels
Knowlton Festival Diary

Building on the excitement of opening night, second season, the Knowlton Festival (Québec, Canada) continued to deliver over the next twelve days with music-making of the highest order. First up – period music specialists , Les Violons du Roy, based in Québec City, filling the air with the sounds of Handel!

In a festival that focuses on bel canto, it makes perfect sense to give some exposure to vocal literature which was an important forerunner to the style. With the participation of Les Violons du Roy, organizers have significantly broadened the repertoire covered by the festival. I hope we will hear more baroque music next year.

Historically informed performances are now fairly commonplace, but Les Violons du Roy have been at it for nearly twenty-five years and their authority in this repertoire is palpable. Much of the credit must go to its conductor Bernard Labadie (photo: right). He gives us not only scholarly work but joyous, exciting and often surprising performances. No wonder he is now in demand all over the world as a guest conductor.

In addition to his early music expertise, Labadie has served a long apprenticeship in the opera house and will make his debut at the Met later this year leading performances of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte”. He is a fine all-round musician and the whole world is now discovering how good he is.

In praising Labadie I don’t mean to underestimate the importance of his players. There were twenty-five of them in the Chapiteau (tent) for this evening of Handel, and each one of them made important contributions. Best of all, they functioned as a well-rehearsed ensemble. They had obviously taken great care to coordinate their phrasing, dynamics, length of the notes and bow strokes. The heart of this orchestra is the string section and it demonstrated a whole range of musical virtues from subtlety to virtuosity. Yes, this is a remarkable band of musicians. One wished their names had appeared in the programme!

The major work this evening was Handel’s “Water Music”. This music was written in 1717 for King George I to enjoy as he sailed down the Thames. Some of it is appropriately regal and festive but there are also more intimate pieces. The orchestration is one of the glories of the work – actually three suites joined together – and Les Violons du Roy made the most of its opportunities. We had a sensuous oboe solo, a perky recorder solo, lusty horn fanfares and trills and exciting timpani riffs.

As Labadie pointed out in his introductory remarks, the “Water Music” is rarely played complete. The reason, one might suggest, is that it can wear out its welcome – but not in this performance. Labadie not only varied dynamics within movements; he also dared to speed up and slow down when he thought the music would benefit from such alterations. Handel left no such instructions for the “Water Music”, but by now Labadie feels so confident in this style that he can permit himself imaginative embellishments. It’s called ‘interpretive freedom’ and in going down this road, Labadie is following in the footsteps of early music pioneers of the order of Harnoncourt, Christie and Gardiner.

Incidentally, Labadie and Les Violons du Roy have made a recording of the “Water Music” for Analekta.

In the first half of the programme, we heard an orchestral suite from “Armida” and a group of arias from Handel’s operas “Alcina” and “Giulio Cesare”. The fine soprano soloist was Hélène Guilmette (photo: right). Her youthful, lyric voice was well-suited to the music and she tossed off the ornamentation with the greatest of ease. I must confess that I prefer a more darkly romantic interpretation of ‘Pianger la sorte mia’. This performance was a little too artful for my taste and the choice of ornamentation ornate rather than expressive. Still, I came away from these performances looking forward to hearing more from Guilmette.

As an aside, I feel compelled to point out once again that in a festival, the focus of which is vocal music, it is a gross oversight not to provide the audience with texts and translations either in the printed programme or as surtitles.

Next: Pianist Stephen Kovacevich plays Beethoven’s massive “Diabelli Variations”.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar“, and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music“, both available at Amazon.com.

Classical Travels
Knowlton Festival Diary

For the Knowlton Festival, Nagano has chosen to focus on one particular aspect of operatic literature, the so-called bel canto composers who flourished in Italy in the early part of the nineteenth century. Nagano’s interest in this music paid great dividends last year with very good performances of Bellini’s “Norma”. This year we heard another Bellini opera, “La Sonnambula” (The Sleepwalker), dating from 1831. Again, Nagano delivered the goods.

“La Sonnambula“, and much else in the bel canto repertoire has been mercilessly parodied by Gilbert and Sullivan. The stories are silly and the music too often begins to sound like the same simple-minded patterns repeated over and over. These operas also became corrupted by self-promoting divas who took the elaborate ornamentation to the realm of total absurdity with their own interpolations. In recent years singers of the stature of Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland and others showed that when one makes a real effort to get back to what the composers intended, many of these operas can be seen in a new and positive light.

Festival Celebrates Unique Beauty of Classic Bel Canto
Nagano is doing for the bel canto operas what the period instrument specialists have been doing for music from earlier periods. He is searching for the correct style of singing and orchestral playing. He has discovered that Bellini’s operas are less like early Verdi and more like what came before in Schubert and Mozart. This means toning down the bombast and easing up on the vibrato, especially in the string playing. It also means shortening the notes. The result is that the Bellini orchestra becomes a somewhat more robust classical or Mozart orchestra. Similarly, the singing is scaled back to become more lyrical and far more intimate.

The Knowlton Festival has become the summer home of the OSM but even this fine, hard-working ensemble has limits in the number of services it can provide. For “La Sonnambula” the OSM is replaced by a “Festival Orchestra”, made up of some of Québec’s finest free-lance players. I have no idea how much rehearsal was needed, but the results were very fine indeed. The Festival Orchestra responded to Nagano’s meticulous direction as if they had been playing together for years.

Sumi Jo Heads Cast of Consummate Bel Canto Stars
Performances of “La Sonnambula” are usually mounted as vehicles for star sopranos. There is no doubt that without a first-rate singer in the role of Amina, the production is unlikely to be successful. At last year’s festival, Sumi Jo (photo: right) was sensational in a concert of operatic excerpts and this year she easily topped that appearance. Her virtuosity was nearly impeccable and her soft singing, exquisite. In the tradition of the finest bel canto artists, she is able to use the ornamentation to convey the feeling of the moment, whether it be joy or sadness or something in between.

She was not alone. Nagano had chosen a superb cast, each of whom was well-schooled in bel canto style. Tenor Barry Banks has technical challenges of his own in the role of Elvino and tossed them off without any difficulty. Riccardo Zanellato as Rodolfo was a commanding presence and cultivated a conversational style of singing perfectly suited to the role. There wasn’t a weak link in this fine cast and the OSM Chorus, functioning in the opera much of the time as a sort of Greek chorus – G & S had a field day with this kind of thing – were precise and animated.

Simple, Effective Staging and Surtitles Enrich Concert Version
This performance was a concert version of the opera with some effective bits of staging by François Racine. Another positive element was the surtitles system set up behind the chorus. The texts, in both French and English, were large enough to be easily read from the back of the tent and always related to what was being sung. We may take surtitles for granted in opera performances but in fact this job must be put in the hands of a highly-skilled professional. In so doing, the Knowlton Festival team enormously enriched the experience for its audience.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com.

Classical Travels

Knowlton Festival Diary

The tiny hamlet of Knowlton (Québec, Canada) was awash with tourists and classical music-lovers for ten days in August this year.

Tourists are a familiar sight in these parts, drawn by the beauty of the location, the antique stores and boutiques selling lavender products and a tempting variety of other country fare. Classical music-lovers, however, are a relatively new phenomenon, attracted by the new (2008) Knowlton Festival.

At its weekend opening concert in the Chapiteau, (photo above: bar area) the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) under Kent Nagano offered another lyrical and transparent Brahms performance – this time the Fourth Symphony – and earlier in the day there was some fine singing to be heard in two different locations.

Cagli’s Master Class an Education in Bel Canto Technique
This morning event was held in the charming Old Brick Church in West Brome. Bruno Cagli (photo: right), the president of the distinguished Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, presented a master class in bel canto with some young singers he had brought with him from Italy. In fact, these singers were already pretty accomplished in bel canto and Cagli spent less time teaching them and more time educating the audience of about 200 – a full house in this intimate setting – in the “rules” of bel canto.

Cagli took his captivated audience through the history of singing, with particular emphasis on nineteenth century composers, including Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Tosti, and some of the most renowned singers from that period. There was also considerable talk about breathing and “proper” voice production.

Each of the singers contributed very good performances. One of them, tenor Antonio Poli, sounded like a major talent. All of them will be heard again during the festival in a concert with the Festival Orchestra.

Domingo’s Rising Stars Take the Stage
Later, I dropped by the Saint Édouard Chapel in Knowlton to hear a recital by winners of Placido Domingo’s Operalia competition.

This concert was announced in the programme as featuring “Winners Operalia 2008″ (Québec City). Only Ukrainian soprano Oksana Kramaryeva (photo: above left), who took “The People’s Prize” there, fit that description. The other soloists were fairly recent Operalia winners in other countries. All were well worth hearing and have deservedly advanced beyond the promising “student” stage to become busy professional artists.

Had I been pressed to choose a favourite, it would have been Kramaryeva. She is a genuine Verdi dramatic soprano with presence, richness of tone and considerable dramatic skills. Kramaryeva and her Operalia colleagues were all featured again later in the festival, withKent Nagano conducting excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugen Onegin” and Massimilliano Murrali conducting excerpts from Bellini’s “I Capuleti e I Montecchi.”

Canada’s own Ben Heppner is in constant demand at all the top opera houses in the world and it was a coup for the festival to be able bring him here. He chose for his programme a group of six songs by Strauss, including the beloved “Zueignung,” along with some less popular pieces.

In the opening bars of “Cäcilie”, we heard Heppner’s effortless purity of sound and beauty of phrasing. The darkly imaginative “Ruhe meine Seele” was also given a fine performance with Nagano taking care over every detail and the members of the OSM playing beautifully. We heard five Strauss songs presented as well as one is likely ever to hear them.

Then came “Befreit”. Suddenly, Heppner’s voice simply failed him. It was painful to hear and undoubtedly most painful for Heppner himself. One could only reflect on the vagaries of the human voice.

Texts, Translations, Projections?
As a festival grows, it learns from its mistakes and tries to improve things that need improvement. For any festival that makes vocal music the core of its mission, great care must be taken to provide the audience with texts for songs, operatic excerpts and complete operas being performed. This can be accomplished by means of texts and translations in the printed programmes or through the use of modern technology with projections on screens situated around the auditorium. Whatever the means used, it is not only important – some might add ‘respectful’ – to provide audience members a comfortable way into a full appreciation of the music they are hearing.

Next: Bellini’s “La Sonnambula”, starring Sumi Jo, with Nagano conducting; Les Violins du Roy under Bernard Labadie in an all Handel programme including Handel’s very popular “Water Music”, and featuring soprano Hélène Guilmette.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com.

Photos by Marita

Classical Travels
Knowlton Festival Diary

The Knowlton Festival, which started life as Festival Bel Canto in the summer of 2008, opened its 2009 summer season with an all Brahms program. Maestro Kent Nagano did his best, in a well-attended pre-concert talk, to make the case that one could legitimately see the music of Brahms as no less bel canto than the operas of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Basically, he was saying that all music is ’singing’ or an attempt to emulate ’singing’ using instruments. But such a broad definition obscures most of the very real and interesting differences between styles of music.

The concert opened with a musical but all too careful reading of the “Academic Festival Overture.” In this rousing piece based on German student songs, being careful doesn’t get the job done. Even in the big moments, the brass was kept on a tight leash and the extra percussion might as well have stayed at home.

On the other hand, the “Alto Rhapsody”, Op. 53 was fascinating. It too was careful, but more appropriately so. This is a dark, brooding piece that can easily sound thick and ponderous. With his sharp ear for balances, Nagano made the piece exquisitely beautiful. He was helped enormously by mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux and the men of the OSM Chorus. I am sure the sound system had something to do it with it, but the balance between voices and orchestra was nearly perfect. Quite a feat in this piece in which voices and instruments alike are pretty much all in the same register.

Lemieux was even better in the “Two Songs for Contralto with Viola and Piano.” Her phrasing was remarkably expressive and she fully deserved the ovation she received.

The major work on the program was Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D major Op. 73. Over the course of the festival, Nagano and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) will perform all four symphonies of Brahms and it was fitting to start this festival set in the Québec countryside with the symphony often called Brahms’ “Pastoral.”

This symphony also made the best case for Nagano’s bel canto approach. From the opening bars, each player was directed to ’sing’ his or her part and did just that. But it was not only the singing quality in the music that Nagano captured; the transparency of the sound was astonishing. Nothing was covered in over-saturated textures. Even the trumpets managed to function as extensions of the woodwind section rather than as the aggressive intruders they often seem to be in this music. The final coda never fails to bring a crowd to its feet and Nagano and the OSM whipped up plenty of excitement. Some prefer a more “hell for leather” approach, but Nagano showed that precision and taste work wonders too.

With this successful ‘official’ opening, the Knowlton Festival was off and running. This concert was sold out and the size of the crowd made for long waits for buses out of the festival site. The audience made the most of the camaraderie that standing in line can effect after a shared ‘good’ experience; nevertheless, if there are more big crowds – and there probably will be – something may yet have to be done to get the buses in and out much faster.

The festival tent was much larger than the one used last year. It was decidedly less claustrophobic and now has a bar area under cover. That it is still acoustically challenged should come as no surprise; it is still a tent and as such has no effective reflecting surfaces. Without amplification, one guesses that very little sound would get to the audience.

When it comes to the amplification of classical music, I have serious reservations; on the other hand, music is meant to be enjoyed and it can be enjoyed in many different ways and in different settings. As executive director Marco Genoni pointed out in his pre-concert talk, there are very few concert halls where you can sit in your seat and see a sunset behind you and a little later a full moon rising in front of you. And I have to say that in quiet passages, the sound system worked extremely well to give you not only more sound, but good quality sound. It?was only when the music got loud, that the lack of real resonance became an issue. And for the fine OSM musicians who have endured Place des Arts all these years, acoustical imperfection has become as way of life.

Everything considered, a visit to the Knowlton Festival should be on every music-lovers list of things to next year. The setting is beautiful and a conductor with refreshing ideas is leading a terrific orchestra in some of the greatest music ever written.

Next: More Brahms, with tenor Ben Heppner adding some songs by Richard Strauss; a concert performance of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” with Nagano conducting and Sumi Jo as Amina; a master class by Bruno Cagli and two recitals. For more information visit the festival website.

Paul E. Robinson is the author of “Herbert von Karajan: the Maestro as Superstar,” and “Sir Georg Solti: His Life and Music,” both available at Amazon.com.

Photos by Marita