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New York Times
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
For Cleveland Orchestra, It's Beethoven (and Freedom) to the Rescue
The Cleveland Orchestra showed up at Carnegie Hall this week without a star. When the music director Franz Welser-Möst planned the ensemble's two-night visit to New York, the opening concert, on Tuesday, was to be headlined by the soprano Asmik Grigorian. A volcanic presence on European stages who rarely makes it to the United States, Grigorian would have been a major box-office draw. Then came news that she was pulling out for unspecified personal reasons. Time to break out the emergency rations of Beethoven. The remaining rump of the Clevelanders' program for Tuesday, the Suite from Janacek's 'From the House of the Dead,' based on Dostoyevsky's account of life in a Russian prison colony, was joined by Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and, for good measure, his 'Leonore' Overture No. 3. A crowd-pleasing solution to a marketing headache? A repertory staple musicians can shine in without too much rehearsal? Not at all. The new program was 'a chance to say something important about our world today,' Welser-Möst wrote in a program statement that referred, smartly but vaguely, to people's 'fight for freedom everywhere.' Without naming specifics, Welser-Möst explained that the Janacek was a testament to 'human dignity' in 'desolate circumstances.' Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 traced a progression 'from darkness to light,' he added, while the overture, written for Beethoven's political prison break opera 'Fidelio,' represented the 'greatest music about freedom ever written.' Far from being a stop gap, the new program created what Welser-Möst called 'a profound statement' that was sure to 'resonate deeply' with New Yorkers. (No similar claims were made for Wednesday's program, which consisted of Stravinsky's 'Pétrouchka' and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.) The resulting concert on Tuesday was invigorating and full of ravishing playing, as was the performance the next night. But if there was any profound truth to be gleaned from the double helping of Beethoven served alongside Janacek's dazzling suite, it was only that the Fifth and the 'Leonore' overture provide ready-made templates for struggle narratives ending in triumph. Just whose struggle and what is being overcome — I'm guessing that Gaza, Ukraine and the state of American democracy are among them — remain open to interpretation. In fairness, the Cleveland Orchestra has never relied on provocative or politically minded programming to earn its devoted fan base and superlative-studded reviews. In his 23 years at the helm, Welser-Möst has fine-tuned this storied ensemble into an elegant, cohesive and keenly responsive engine. Other American orchestras have struggled to define their role in society as they fret over accusations that their branch of the arts is reactionary and socially irrelevant. The Cleveland Orchestra's image may be conservative — a guardian of a particular European tradition — but it's a well-defined luxury brand that delivers outstanding value. Watching the musicians perform on the same stage that had just hosted the Vienna Philharmonic, I was struck by the similarities between the two institutions. Some of it had to do with the Cleveland Orchestra's mellow and thoughtfully blended brass section, which stands apart from the more metallic and muscular playing in most American orchestras. The Cleveland string section physically moves much like its Austrian counterpart, with entire blocks of players bobbing and weaving as in a chamber setting where the whole torso helps signal expressive intent to the group. Especially in the last movement of the Tchaikovsky, it was a pleasure watching the violinists sway and dance as a bloc. And though the ensemble is studded with stars, a spirit of collaborative forbearance infuses solos. The guest concertmaster Jan Mracek was almost self-effacingly light-footed in the virtuosic cadenzas Janacek writes for the solo violin. John Clouser's bassoon simmered with refinement, especially in the Tchaikovsky. And my ear kept being drawn to the uncommonly dark-hued sound of Joshua Smith's flute, which lent unexpected gravitas to an instrument that typically provides light birdlike relief whenever it rises above the orchestral texture. From the podium, Welser-Möst projected discreet authority, conducting with an economy of gesture that highlighted the easy symbiosis between him and the orchestra. In the Beethoven symphony, he was especially attentive to transitional moments, including the exponential crescendo that flares up at the end of the third movement and leads into the explosive final Allegro. Beethoven demands utmost restraint from the orchestra in the bars leading up to that surge, as the music rises in pitch without yet gaining volume. At Carnegie Hall, that passage came across as almost claustrophobically repressive, the eventual uncorking of sound and energy seeming to burst out like pent-up frustration. It was one of those musical thrills that might have made Beethoven's Fifth such a safe bet with audiences of all kinds. But to a politically inclined listener, it could also sound like a tipping point in a mass movement leading to revolution.
New York Times
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: A New York Philharmonic Evening of Small Epiphanies
Near the end of the lullaby that gives way to the blazing finale of Stravinsky's 'Firebird' Suite, the music slows and thins to a whisper. In the ballet, this is the moment when an evil sorcerer and his minions fall into a deep sleep. In some renditions, it registers as little more than a pause. But at David Geffen Hall on Thursday, the New York Philharmonic, under the baton of Marin Alsop, restored fairy-tale mystery to that transition. Just moments earlier, she had coaxed some of the most opulently sensual playing of the evening from the ensemble, including a voluptuous bassoon solo and swooning strings. Then, as the texture tapered, she appeared to drain the music of its pulse with medicinal deliberation. An unnerving trance settled over the room. When the finale's horn solo emerged — noble, transcendent — it felt as if it arose from a place deep inside the subconscious. There were small epiphanies like that throughout the concert, which also included works by Beethoven and Brahms, and a new violin concerto by Nico Muhly. Alsop has an ability to manipulate time to expressive effect, and the sound she drew from the Philharmonic was cohesive and malleable, the playing poised between discipline and individual dazzle. In Beethoven's 'Leonore' Overture No. 3, she leaned into the uncertainty of the opening phrase, shaping each swelling chord with its own gradient from quiet to louder, its own testy relationship to the beat. When the music erupted and rushed onward, the release felt all the more liberating for having gone through such visceral hesitation. Brahms's work Variations on a Theme by Haydn requires forensic attention to balance with ever new iterations that often need to be adjusted and contained in such a way that they just barely shine through the finicky business of the rest of the score. Alsop led a transparent reading that patiently marshaled its forces for a majestic finale. The violinist Renaud Capuçon joined the orchestra for the world premiere of Muhly's brightly hued but emotionally aloof concerto. Capuçon's performance felt tense at times, although that may have partly resulted more from the visual awkwardness of his stiff stance while reading from a music stand lowered to the height of his waist. He played with a gleaming, sweet sound and glassy clean intonation in double-stop passages where the solo violin seems to act like a prism refracting light from the orchestra. Muhly's concerto leans heavily on traditional expressive devices including suspensions: temporary dissonances resulting from one voice moving a step out of sync with a second voice. In Baroque music, that push and pull typically lends a slow movement its sense of flow, but here, they hang in the air with throbbing ambivalence. A strength of Muhly's is his meticulous attention to instrumentation and the distribution of sound in space, including a wonderfully subversive series of 'solos' — really just bright dabs of single notes — written for players on the last desk of the first and the second violin sections. With Capuçon spinning high lines that tangled with resonant metallic percussion accents, it was easy to miss these solos on the periphery of the orchestra, and yet they were part of a fastidiously inventive sound world.
New York Times
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: With ‘Fidelio,' the Met Opera Does What It Does Best
Opera houses tend to have their specialties. They might be havens for adventurous directors or unusual repertoire, for grand spectacles or Baroque chamber dramas. The Metropolitan Opera, at its finest, is a destination for voices. The Met is a glamorously storied house with a welcoming audience and undeniable prestige. It hasn't always been quick to cast today's rising singers, but when it does, it holds on to them, sometimes even bending its repertory to match theirs. And occasionally, the Met will gather its favorites in a single opera, assembling a vocal all-star team. This is what the company does best, and it can be thrilling to witness, as in the revival of Beethoven's 'Fidelio' that opened on Tuesday. This 'Fidelio' isn't just excellently sung, including by the Met's sensitive chorus: Jürgen Flimm's fresh-as-ever staging from 2000 is also led with clarity, drive and insight by the conductor Susanna Mälkki. It's just a pity that the revival is so brief, with only four more performances through March 15. These performances will also be the last of the season for the soprano Lise Davidsen. With a remarkably luminous sound in Wagner and Strauss roles, she has been a pillar of the Met's recent casting. But she announced in January that she was pregnant with twins and would take a break from singing after 'Fidelio.' (She is set to be back at the Met next year to star in 'Tristan und Isolde.') A towering presence, with a seemingly unshakable nobility, Davidsen is made for roles like Leonore, the heroine who, disguised as a man named Fidelio, infiltrates the prison where her husband, Florestan, is being held and starved for his political beliefs. Her 'Komm, Hoffnung,' in which Leonore expresses worry and hope for rescuing her husband was a journey from soft-spoken determination to resounding confidence. When, in Act 2, she revealed her identity to the villainous Don Pizarro, she was shockingly fearsome, with an otherworldly strength that befits an opera in which characters are more archetypal than human. The soprano Ying Fang has a nearly opposite sound, of Mozartean agility and precision, less powerful yet more heavenly. As Marzelline, the warden's daughter who falls in love with Fidelio, she didn't blend easily with Davidsen but charmed on her own, and she was more appropriately matched with the young tenor Magnus Dietrich as her suitor, Jaquino. Jaquino is a thankless role; like the assault rifles he assembles and threateningly wields but never uses in Flimm's production, he is a Chekhov's gun without a trigger. In his Met debut, Dietrich made the best of what he was given, boyish in his irrational devotion to Marzelline, with a pleasantly tender and focused sound. The other tenor role is more herculean: Florestan, sung at the Met by David Butt Philip with ardent tirelessness matched only by his dramatic bravery. He enters with a high G, exposed once the orchestra drops out after a beat. There isn't a fermata in the score, but Philip held the note, less to show off than to trace an arc of pathetic anguish to full-voiced despair. René Pape was back as the warden Rocco, which he sang when Flimm's staging was new. After a quarter century, Pape's sound may be a bit smaller, but it was still warm, as well as appropriate for a loyal worker willing, against his better judgment, to follow the sadistic orders of Pizarro. In that role, the bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny had a loud, reverberating speaking voice, similarly penetrating when he sang, that slowly revealed itself as posturing bluster; he remains one of the great acting talents at the Met. In Flimm's production, Pizarro is a vaguely defined tyrant who answers to and fears a higher, distant authority. It's deliberately unspecific, with details plucked from oppressive regimes of recent history: cold Soviet architecture; discarded shoes piled as if in a concentration camp; khaki uniforms of a banana republic; a monument, eerily of our moment, that may or may not be giving a Nazi salute. Beethoven's opera is beautiful if flawed as theater, with political idealism that is more admirable than resonant. But Flimm, who died in 2023, found a way to make it work and, most impressively, speak to the audiences of each revival in different ways. During the Iraq War, the toppling of a dictator's monument in the finale felt ripped from the headlines. With a rightward swing around the world today, there seems to be a warning in its 'Zone of Interest'-like juxtaposition of the mundane and the monstrous; flowers are trimmed and dinner is served as prisoners look on, in a portrait of complicity and opportunism. Most chillingly, Flimm turns Beethoven's celebratory finale into a warning. The officers who have just obeyed Pizarro now cheer his execution, while members of the public menacingly wave knives in the air. Flimm, a German born during World War II, knew that tyrants are dangerous, but so are people who are all too happy to do as they're told.
