Brott Music Festival at Theatre Aquarius

Thursday evening we took in another of the "classical" concerts by the National Academy Orchestra, this time at Theatre Aquarius in downtown Hamilton. The main theatre seats about 700 and I would estimate that it was half full, a considerably better crowd than the last of their concerts that we attended. For all that, they were selling off admissions for $10 on the day of the show (not the pricier ones, I hope)

The concert was conducted by Jean-Marie Zeitouni who had conducted the HPO at another show we'd attended (Barber Adagio, Copland Appalachian Spring, Raum Violin Concerto). That was part of the audition parade for the new Music Director of that organization. He didn't get the job which I view as unfortunate as he's qualified, very capable and a Canadian. He's also an engaging speaker and a exuberant conductor.

They opened the concert with Pierre Mercure's Pantomime, a short work for winds and percussion. It's a lovely modernist piece and was a remarkable accomplishment for the 21 year old composer. 

This was followed by Ney Rosauro's Marimba Concerto played by one of the NAO's percussionists, Nathaniel Mears. Mears also plays with the Ottawa and Kingston Symphony Orchestras. His performance was impressive. He's a wonderful marimba player (marimbaist?)

The composer is a marimba virtuoso. The work, in four contrasting movements, demonstrates what the instrument can do. Mears played with both 2 and 4 mallets. There were lots of arpeggios and various scale passages played, sometimes while performing other figures with his other hand. By rapidly re-striking a bar without too much  force, Mears was able to approximate sustain while playing melodies on the instrument while simultaneously performing patterns with the other three mallets.

Each movement had its own mood and overall metre so was quite different from the others. The composer was obviously influenced by Brazilian folk music, jazz and polyrhythmic music using each to good effect. 

The first half ended with Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) Suite. Ravel composed the piece for piano-four-hands (1910) for a friend's children and orchestrated it a year later. It is this version that we heard. He then added additional music and turned it into a ballet.

It's an understated piece containing some really lovely melodies and harmonic effects. The second movement Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb) is so short and similar to the first movement Pavane that I missed it entirely. I wasn't bowled over by the performance, though, and will be interested to hear the HPO play it in their 24/25 season. 

The second half made up for that, however. They played Dvořák's Eighth Symphony and it was a spectacular reading. The work is full of dances, lively rhythms and dazzling melodies.  Zeitouni's clear and animated conducting elicited a very energized performance from these mostly young professional players. None of its four movements ever dragged. The third movement waltz was notably lovely. The brasses, which feature in sections of the work, were especially effective. The second oboe (doubling English Horn) played a beautiful solo. 

Next up in the "classical music" list is a concert at 7:30, Thurs. Aug.1 at Mohawk College (easily accessible from The Linc, by the way).  Artistic Director Tania Miller conducts. They're playing Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune, Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Overture and the ever popular Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky.

Cymbelline at Stratford

We made the 80 minute drive to Stratford yesterday to the see Shakespeare’s Cymbeline performed in the new (to us) Tom Patterson Theatre. Patterson was one of the founders of the festival in the early 1950s. Productions were originally staged in a tent (!) and are now presented at 4 venues. 

The theatre was constructed on the same site as the previous theatre which was, out of festival seasons, a curling rink. The thrust stage and purpose built raked seating were thus re-assembled each spring and taken down in the fall when performances concluded. For all that, it worked very well as a theatre, in spite of its shortcomings, and they resolved that the characteristics of the new performing space would be similar.

The new theatre is spectacular in every way. It is located just metres from the placid Avon River which runs through the city’s downtown and the forecourt is a large garden. The building is fronted by glass curtain walls and contains the well appointed 700 seat theatre, additional public spaces and lounges as well as rehearsal halls.

As for the performance itself, neither of us were familiar with the play. That’s in part why we decided it would be the purpose of our only trip to the festival this year. The play was published in the First Folio of 1623 and is the fifth last that he wrote. It was described then as a tragedy, which it isn’t by any definition, and later as a romance or comedy, both of which it is. The name of the character, Cymbeline is based upon an actual historical king whom Shakespeare discovered in his research and much of the action of the play borrowed from an earlier one.

I won’t get into a synopsis. However, the play employs various devices that will be familiar to anyone who knows Shakespeares oeuvre. There’s a wager regarding the faithfullness of a wife, a woman disguised as a man, mistaken identities, comic characters living in the woods, a potion that makes one appear to be dead, not merely asleep, appearances by the god Jupiter and more.

Moreover, in this production, the king, Cymbeline becomes a queen (played by Lucy Peacock) and his scheming wife becomes a Duke (Rick Roberts). 

There’s a large cast. Standout performances came from Jordin Hall (Posthumus), Tyrone Savage (Lachimo), Christopher Allen (Cloten) and Wahsonntí:io Kirby (Cornelius).

In conclusion, we familiarized ourselves with the play before (and during) the ride to Stratford, always a good policy when attended an unfamiliar classic one (or opera, for that matter). I’m not sure that we’d have gone if we’d known the play at all before we bought the tickets but don’t let that put you off since it was a very entertaining afternoon watching an excellent performance of an outrageous play.

In the end, love conquers all, and they all live happily ever after except for those who die, one of whose headless body plays, in one scene, an important role.