Princeton Festival triumphs with dazzling production of The Marriage of Figaro

Review in 6/18/15 issue of TimeOff, the cultural magazine of the Princeton Packet newspaper:

'The Marriage of Figaro' The Princeton Festival marries slapstick with the sublime with Mozart’s opera

By Linda Holt

Laugh, cry, laugh until you cry: The Princeton Festival is ringing in summer with The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Mozart’s great comic opera, in a dazzling and delightful production at McCarter Theatre.

Under the baton of conductor and the festival’s artistic director Richard Tang Yuk, and with direction by Steven LaCosse, some of Mozart’s most beloved music takes flight thanks to spirited performances by a cast of world-class singers and an orchestra to match. The scandalous escapades of an assortment of characters, lovable rascals all, unfold seamlessly, as though the performers had worked as an ensemble for many years. This production looks as gorgeous as it sounds thanks to elegant sets by Peter Dean Beck, evocative lighting by Norman Coates, and eye-appealing costumes, works of art in themselves, managed by Marie Miller.

Last year, McCarter Theatre presented the play by Beaumarchais upon which Mozart’s opera is based. Both versions were highly controversial in their day (the 1780s) for, among other things, depicting the triumph of wily servants over their master, something perceived as a threat to the social order. A somewhat risqué subtext gives the tale a modern sensibility. There are no ecclesiastical or government authorities weighing in on moral decisions. Love itself and basic human decency, grounded in reason, ultimately prevail over the darker forces of lust and domination.

The twists and turns of an increasingly hilarious plot involve the lecherous Count (Sean Anderson) who hopes to bed his wife’s chambermaid Susanna (Haeran Hong) on the eve of her marriage to his servant, Figaro (Jonathan Lasch). Susanna and the Countess (Katherine Whyte) plot to out the Count’s plan, embarrass him, and return him to the arms of his beautiful, long-suffering wife, allowing Susanna and Figaro to marry without incident.

Other characters adding spunk and richness to this nuanced drama include the love-besotted page, Cherubino, played by a soprano in male costume (Cassandra Zoé Velasco). Things take a more contemporary turn as in one scene, the Countess and Susanna attempt to pass off the protesting lad as a member of the female staff, resulting in some Victor Victoria-esque humor.

All well and good for a fun-filled tale of intrigue, slapstick, and wit. But it’s the music that makes The Marriage, a work still fresh and bright after more than 200 years. Mozart seems to have breathed out the entire score in one celestial breath. Exciting overture to duet to aria to quartet and beyond: the solos, ensembles, and even the graceful recitatives flood the listener in one harmonious inundation of sound and feeling. Even novice opera goers whisper, “Ah, I know that song,” or “Where have I heard that before?” much as people on the streets of Vienna in 1786 hummed and whistled the tunes on their way to work. And, indeed, I challenge anyone attending this production not to be humming the tunes the next day.

Fortunately, in this production, all the singers are up to the challenge of articulating these melodies in the most expressive, enjoyable, and memorable style. But in opera, the singing cannot be separated from acting and dance (using the broad sense of dance as moving purposefully and expressively on stage).

As Figaro, Mr. Lasch expresses all the character’s qualities convincingly: humor, strength, determination, wit, deviousness, devotion. His resonant baritone voice can be brash, graceful, insinuating, as it is in the Act I aria, “Se vuol ballare, Signor Contino.” (If, dear Count, you feel like dancing). With a clever touch, Act III moves directly to Act IV against a black curtain, as Figaro tiptoes into the garden, bewailing the fickleness of women. “Don’t you agree?” he asks the male members of the audience. “These fickle ladies are all about you!” And at this the theater lights rise briefly so gentlemen in the audience can look around and see for themselves.

Figaro is sometimes portrayed as a scamp, but Mr. Lasch offers a much richer interpretation, lifting him above the role of vaudeville protagonist into a higher level of understanding, without sacrificing humor or wit. Like other members of this cast, Mr. Lasch is master of the stage, striding confidently, cowering behind a chair, or engaging in a few graceful dance steps as called for.

As Susanna, Ms. Hong conveys the freshness of youth, with a clear, silvery voice, especially evident in the haunting aria, “Deh vieni” in Act IV. There is a warm physicality in the way she and the other characters move and relate to each other that brings authenticity and — above and beyond the farcical elements of the opera — wins our empathy and trust.

One of the great ovations on opening night went to Katherine Whyte as the dignified Countess following her breathtaking interpretation of “Dove sono i bei moment” (Where are the lovely moments of sweetness and pleasure?) in Act IV (for the dramatic lead into the aria, the orchestra deserves kudos as well). Her husband is seducing her chambermaid, they are setting a trap to ensnare him, but will it have the effect the two women desire? Where indeed have the lovely moments gone in their storybook romance?

Sean Anderson is imposing, overbearing, and ultimately contrite as the Count, a role with great demands on the singer as a musician and performer. It seems cruel not to single out each singer and the vibrant chorus for special mention. Zoé Velasco’s Cherubino was especially noteworthy, a spritely, nimble, and charming performance, physically as well as vocally. This opera has a superabundance of baritones and sopranos, making it interesting to compare the different qualities of voices in each category. Zoé Velasco’s voice has a beguiling warmth conducive to boyish declarations of love.

Other major players, who join together in the final great ensemble of Act IV, include Kathryn Kasovec as Marcellina, an older servant who wishes to steal Figaro from Susanna; Ricardo Lugo as Bartolo; David Kellett as Don Basilio, two scheming professionals; Paul An as the troublemaker Antonio, played with spot-on vaudeville élan; Vincent DiPeri as Don Curzio. And let me mention a small but significant contribution: a bright young operatic star, Jessica Beebe, as Barbarina, Antonio’s daughter, who stole hearts with the only aria in the minor mode, L’ho perduta, me meschina — (I’ve lost it, poor me). To bring such authenticity and expression to a small part signifies a great talent. Hoping to hear more good things about this soprano in the years ahead. There is, of course, one glaring negative to this production of The Marriage of Figaro: only two more performances remain. Those will be held on consecutive Sundays, at 3 p.m. on June 21 and 28 in McCarter Theatre as part of the Festival’s program of summertime concerts. This has been an opera well worth waiting for, and not to be missed.

Photo by Jessi Franko: Jonathan Lasch in The Princeton Festival’s production of The Marriage of Figaro.

The Marriage of Figaro continues at McCarter Theatre, June 21 and June 28, 3 p.m. For tickets and information, go to www.princetonfestival.com or call 609-258-2787.

International Journal publishes "Beethoven the Philosopher"

My paper, "Beethoven the Philosopher: A Reflection," appears in the June 2015 edition of Philosophy Pathways electronic newsletter: http://www.philosophypathways.com/newsletter/issue194.html As summarized by editor, Richard Grego,
"The first essay on 'Beethoven the Philosopher' by Dr Linda Brown Holt
looks at the little-known but surprisingly pervasive influence of
German Enlightenment and Idealist philosophies on the artistic
development of Ludwig Von Beethoven's work at the turn of the 18th/
19th centuries. While Beethoven's musical transition from exemplar of
classicism to pioneer of the romantic style is well known, the
possible role that contemporaneous philosophical themes like freedom
and potentiality ---- characteristic of the romantic era ethos -- may
have played in inspiring this transition is little-examined and
largely unappreciated in the history of ideas. The essay establishes
a philosophical genealogy suggesting that this philosophical trend,
through the legacy of prominent professors at the university where
Beethoven studied philosophy, may have exerted a significant
formative influence on Beethoven's psychology and work.

Part II: Stephan Möller reveals spirit of Beethoven, and indeed, of life itself in 32 sonata cycle

It was with great pleasure and no little awe that I attended each of the eight recitals in the Freehold, N.J., Downtown Concert Series (DCS) presentation of the 32 Piano Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. The concerts ran from May 16 through 23, 2015, with one evening free, at least for the audience. (On that evening, the pianist, Stephan Möller, performed Beethoven’s monumental Hammerklavier - Sonata #29 in Carnegie Hall.) WWFM the Classical Network is occasionally broadcasting sonata movements from the DCS cycle on radio and at www.wwfm.org .

My first “review” of this series appeared on this blog last week (see below), covering Sonatas #1 through 11. Today’s blog entry reflects on the performance of Sonatas #12 through 32.

We hear about expression in music; but what is being expressed? For many, it is a musician’s idea of the music and frequently the musician’s own self image and ego, tightly packed with a lifetime of conditioning and assumptions.

There is nothing wrong with musicians proactively expressing themselves through their music. Music is one of the greatest avenues for expression of the ego. But rare is the musician who steps back, completely at the service of the composer, and allows the creative genius to shine through. Such a musician is Stephan Möller.

In an off-hand remark during the reception following the concert, the German pianist, now based in Vienna, mentioned that he had not previously played all 32 sonatas within a single week as a continuous cycle. This is truly extraordinary. For there is an irrepressible, interconnected momentum linking his performances, an organic force permeating each individual sonata and its relationship to those that precede and follow it. At the same time, the musician developed an intimate connection with the audience, a phenomenon that emerges in only the finest chamber ensembles and recitals.

Truly, something rare and unique was unfolding on a simple church stage on the edge of a New Jersey farm community: Möller was allowing us to glimpse the mind and soul of Beethoven, as few musicians have revealed it.

Throughout the series, Möller cut a dignified but accessible figure at the piano. There were none of the excessive theatrics some artists employ to mask their own lack of insight. Yes, here was a man who played music with his entire being, from thoughtful expression to abrupt gesture in concluding an agitated section, a portrait of absorption and service to the music, head to toe. Overall, Möller played with deep feeling and a kind of abandon that just borders on frenzy, then is softened with deliberation and poise. Surely, church acoustics and not exactly the world’s best piano were formidable challenges, but frankly, I never once thought about them until later, as an after-thought.

Möller and Mark Hyczko, DCS Artistic Director, provided welcome commentary before and between sets each evening. Sonatas #12 through #32 include some of Beethoven’s most well-known works, those which we think of by name, including the Moonlight, the Hunt, the Waldstein, Appassionata, the Farewell, and the massive Hammerklavier. These 21 sonatas evolve from the emotional conflicts of the composer’s stormy middle period, including his Herculean struggle with the onset of deafness, to a period of dryness, legal disputes, and disinterest, and finally into the sublime revelation of the last sonatas, one might call them Enlightenment sonatas, named not for the political era which had ended, but after the awakening which is the goal of the world’s great spiritual traditions.

As Möller pointed out in his short lecture on the last sonatas, they are life itself, emerging from stillness, existing for a brief while, and then returning to silence. There is nothing to add, he said: they are perfect. These are the closest to Beethoven we ever get, he continued, and while they are playing, “they lift us up to the sky.”

While Möller performed from memory with fire, spirit, and a commanding tone, he was most communicative in Beethoven’s richly eloquent pauses and ritardandi. Many of the listeners filling the pews will take with them forever the final image of the pianist, a tear glistening on his cheek, his head bowed in silence long after the last note in the sonata series faded like the distant echo of a dream.

The Downtown Concert Series of Freehold, N.J., is to be commended for its courage and passion for excellence in bringing this epic event to the eastern United States. Future offerings are listed at the DCS Web site, www.downtownconcertseries.org . The historic St. Peter’s Church is easy to find, and there are many good hotels, inns, and restaurants facilitating travel and comfort--Linda Holt

Photo below, taken at the Freehold series, by Mark Lamhut:

Möller Brings Passion, Power, and Sensitivity to Beethoven Piano Sonatas

I woke up this morning with sections of the first 11 piano sonatas by Beethoven romping in my brain. What an earworm! But hardly surprising. After all, I am close to halfway through the Beethoven Complete 32 Piano Sonata Cycle, with Stephan Möller, a pianist of breathtaking vision, energy, and sensitivity, thanks to the Downtown Concert Series (DCS) in Freehold, N.J.

The highly regarded German pianist, who also conducts, records, teaches, and leads the Vienna International Pianists Association and Academy, has been enthralling large audiences each night in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, founded in 1702 (quite a bit before Beethoven). At this writing, Professor Möller has completed the first 11—including the driving Pathétique—since Saturday, May 16. The seven-night series (no concert Friday) will end with two complete recitals on Saturday, May 23, featuring what many consider the greatest works composed for the piano, Beethoven’s Late Sonatas.

In brief remarks after an intermission, Möller warmly described the 32 sonatas as unique personalities, each having a distinctive character, moving the development of Western art music far along a trajectory that leaves classicism behind and forges new pathways into the future of music. Under Möller’s touch, each sonata speaks in its own voice. His style may be brisk and dynamic for some tastes, but there is no doubt, he knows exactly how to present these sonatas—works of three or four movements—in a way that newcomers to classical music as well as seasoned scholars can appreciate and enjoy. It is a joy to see and hear a pianist who plays with such relish and abandon. He understands the great shape and forms of these works, and because of this, is free to express and interpret with impunity, with the assurance that form is the servant of art, not its master.

Performing a Beethoven Cycle is the ultimate accomplishment for a great virtuoso, and a challenge of unimaginable proportions. To translate this into the art of drama, imagine an actor playing the lead in each of Shakespeare’s 37 plays in sequence over, say, a month in time. And of course, Shakespeare is in English, not the complex language of musical notation.

I hope to write more about this remarkable event, enthusiastically received by music-lovers from far beyond the Freehold city limits. But now I must prepare to hear the 14th sonata and enjoy some of the greatest music that ever issued from an individual intelligence. Great work DCS and Professor Möller! --Linda Holt

Remaining concerts are 7:30 p.m. May 19, 20, 21, and at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 23. Tickets at the door are $15 per concert, with a special rate of $25 for the two Saturday performances. St. Peter's Church is located at 33 Throckmorton St., Freehold, N.J. http://downtownconcertseries.org/#beethoven-the-complete-sonatas

Chamber Orchestra Celebrates 50 Years With Modern Flourishes & Classic LvB

Time flies when you’re playing great music. That new kid on the block, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The season concluded with a celebratory concert on Mother’s Day featuring two lively short works from the modern era and two Beethoven classics.

Although Beethoven composed the Triple Concerto Op. 56 and the Fifth Symphony Op. 67 just a few years apart in the dawn of the 19th century, both works have completely different temperatures. The Triple (for violin, cello, piano, and orchestra) is still redolent with the classical heritage of Mozart and Haydn, the Fifth forging new pathways of musical logic and sustained expressive power.

The program had an unusual shape and flow to it in terms of sound and energy. The explosive opening salvo was Brossé’s own composition, The Philadelphia Overture, dating from 2010, bright with chimes and brass. The work shows influences by Elmer Bernstein and John Williams, but the message is entirely Brossé’s own.

Following in contrast, the Triple unfolded with calm deliberation. Orchestrally, this was a performance muted to let the standout trio take center stage. The three soloists—violinist Soovin Kim, cellist Marie Elisabeth Hecker, and appropriately commanding pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn—engaged in a true musical conversation, a tête-à-tête among their instruments which never faltered and showcased impeccable technique and deep understanding of this largely underappreciated work.

This attempt to showcase the trio, however, sometimes led to a quietist effect in the orchestra, where upper tones occasionally seemed to evaporate before they reached the ear. The overall effect, however, was a pleasing one, a long (30-minutes-plus), satisfying reverie between the attention-grabbing overture and the piquant Barber Toccata Festiva to follow. While all three soloists were superb, special note must be made of Hecker’s heavenly tone, especially evident at the beginning of the second movement.

The pitch of the program rose again after intermission as Alan Morrison, one of the great American organists and Haas Charitable Trust Chair in Organ Studies at Curtis Institute, joined the orchestra in Barber’s Toccata. What a strange, engaging work this is, complex in its structure and orchestration, alternating between organ and orchestra, gripping the attention of listeners at various levels of sophistication. This is a relentless, driving short work, with no let-up. Brossé and Morrison were certainly enjoying themselves, the tall organist’s fingers and feet flying over keys and pedals, creating a sensibility both modern and gothic. A little loud for me and perhaps for a Chamber orchestra, but Barber’s vision was well served in a rousing exposition.

For the last celebratory work, Brossé conducted Beethoven’s Fifth in all its familiar but still exultant glory. He took the orchestra lickety-split in a high-velocity whirl through the first movement. It was a little fast, but then, speed adds a kind of celebratory zest to a performance, and so it worked well for this occasion, if not for others.

Most of us never weary of this work, as strong a statement of hope and triumph as ever issued from a creative mind. In Beethoven’s case, that mind had no reason to hope at all, as he sank into the dark night of deafness and despair. His ascension out of that despair in the Fifth Symphony is what makes us keeping come back to it time and again. I suppose that inexhaustibility is what makes a classic, not only in symphonic music, but in other forms, like Jazz. Every time I hear a great performance of “Green Dolphin Street” or “I Remember Clifford,” it’s as though I am hearing it for the first time. O magnum mysterium.

Now five years at the helm of the Orchestra, Brossé truly is a wonderful conductor, and Philadelphia is lucky to have him. He provides a broad overview of a work, brings out compelling solo lines, sometimes in ways that surprise (such as the drawn-out oboe solo in the otherwise breath-taking celerity of the first movement). The orchestra is the right size with the ideal dynamic range for this work, though I admit, on occasion, I do love to hear that famous transition from the third to the fourth movement conducted by a latter-day Stokowski with a double-sized orchestra in the Hollywood Bowl!

Before the concert got underway, the Orchestra’s board members offered some affable congratulatory statements and introduced the group’s three conductors over a half century of music making: the founder, Mark Mostovoy, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, and Dirk Brossé. One of the Orchestra’s original musicians still plays in the first violin section: Igor Szwec. The audience cheered, and seldom have musicians and an ensemble deserved such a round of gratitude and praise. --Linda Holt

What, When, Where

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, 50th Anniversary Concert, Dirk Brossé, conductor. Soovin Kim, violin; Marie Elisabeth Hecker, cello; Ignat Solzhenitsyn, piano; Alan Morrison, organ. Brossé, The Philadelphia Overture; Beethoven, The Triple Concerto in C Major Op. 56; Barber, Toccata Festiva; Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67. May 10, 2015, Verizon, the Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia. http://www.chamberorchestra.org/ Below: Dirk Brossé conducting the Chamber Orchestra.

Möller to perform complete Beethoven Sonatas in New Jersey May 16-23, 2015

Tickets at a New Jersey venue are still available for the COMPLETE Beethoven piano sonatas featuring the gifted German pianist, Stephan Möller, starting May 16, 2015. If you have any interest in great, passionate music, you won't want to miss this rare and exciting opportunity in a venue easily accessible to music lovers in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania! There are plenty of good hotels in the area (Freehold, N.J., USA) for those who plan to attend the entire cycle May 16 through May 23. https://www.facebook.com/events/874027479305366/

Art before Breakfast...just don't do it in public!

Art Before Breakfast: A Zillion Ways to be More Creative No Matter How Busy You Are by Danny Gregory

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Cheerful little book, impossible to dislike. However, I have the impression the artist had all these sketches sitting around and didn't know what to do with them, so he put them together in this book, with the title and intent as afterthoughts. I enjoyed listening to his interview on NPR and hope to sketch more as a result.

There is still a stigma, though, of people drawing in public. Our culture, regardless of what our leaders say, is hostile to the arts and views them as a waste of time and money, showing off, even a threat. Adults who take music or art lessons are viewed as self-centered and selfish, although children are still encouraged to take lessons as long as it doesn't interfere with sports and passing exams.

I think a subversive, revolutionary approach to drawing would be more effective.



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