|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Guest Conductor Brings Two Sides of Richard Strauss' Romanticism to the Stage Provided by RPO  |
| |
In time for Valentine’s weekend, a guest conductor and guest soprano celebrate with the RPO in a program of passionate German Romantic music. Justin Brown, one of Britain’s leading conductors, takes the podium on Thursday, February 11 at 7:30 pm, and Saturday, February 13 at 8:00 pm in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, in Richard Strauss’ tone poem Don Juan, the composer’s Four Last Songs – with guest soprano Twyla Robinson – and Schumann’s Third Symphony, “Rhenish.” Brown hosts the First Niagara Pre-Concert Chat one hour prior to concert start with the RPO’s Interim Senior Director of Artistic Operations Krishna Thiagarajan.
Brown opens with Richard Strauss’ Don Juan, written when the composer was only 25. Inspired by dramatic verses by Austrian author Nicolaus Lenau, it is overflowing with energy and ardent emotions. Music Director Seaman notes that Don Juan is “that notorious womanizer, hopeless not only in his condition but also in his attempts to find ‘the perfect woman.’ The swashbuckling opening is famous, as are the wonderfully romantic melodies.”
In comparison, Four Last Songs, composed in 1946 towards the end of Strauss’ life, reflect a much different, post-war, world-weary mood. A poem titled Im Abendrot (In the Evening’s Glow) came to Strauss’ attention, its characters, an elderly couple gazing into the sunset, paralleling he and his wife Pauline. He completed his setting that year, with the possible thought of combining it with four pieces inspired by poems by Hermann Hesse. Strauss died after only composing three: Spring, September, and Falling Asleep, and never heard them in concert; the four were performed in 1950, eight months after his death. RPO program annotator Don Anderson writes, “Spring pays rapturous tribute to that glorious season of the year, one that seems full of hope after the chill of winter. The cycle of seasons continues in September, as summer turns inexorably to autumn, text, atmosphere, and music darken and decay, as the poet begins to accept the inevitable end of all things. Falling Asleep continues the poet’s journey towards the afterlife. These mellow, achingly beautiful and voluptuously orchestrated works represent – consciously so – Strauss’s musical last will and testament,” says Anderson. “In them he put aside the realistic horrors of mid-20th century life and returned to the Romantic style of his own early music, supplemented by vast intervening experience.”
Established as one of Britain’s leading conductors, Justin Brown has been Music Director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra since 2006 and was named general music director of the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe in 2008-09. Assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein in Tanglewood, he made his conducting debut with the celebrated British stage premiere of Bernstein’s Mass and subsequently has conducted throughout the U.K., Scandinavia, Japan, and the U.S. Brown’s recording of Peter Lieberson’s “The Six Realms” won a 2006 WQXR Gramophone American Award and was nominated for a Grammy award (Best Classical Recording). His latest Bridge release of Gershwin’s complete music for piano and orchestra (Dallas Symphony) was chosen as an Editor’s Choice by Gramophone magazine.
Featured soprano Twyla Robinson has earned praise for her consummate musicianship, dramatic sensibility, and ravishing vocal beauty. She has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Staatskapelle, The Cleveland Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, singing under such conductors as Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, Franz Welser-Möst, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Michael Tilson Thomas. She recently performed Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the American Symphony Orchestra in New York, with the ballet of Opéra National de Paris as part of a tribute to well-known choreographer Maurice Béjart, and with Shreveport Symphony. She joins Hans Graf for the world premiere of Absolute Ocean, for soprano, harp and orchestra. She also has been heard as Donna Anna in Arizona Opera’s production of Don Giovanni and will join Seattle Opera as Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro.
After intermission, the RPO performs Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 (its nickname “Rhenish” is taken from Schumann’s home along the Rhine River, in Dusseldorf). The five-movement symphony portrays a wide range of emotions including pride and heroism (especially at the beginning), but also shows darker moods, notably the second of the two slow movements, a musical picture of a Gothic cathedral in Cologne. The second movement has the feel of a German folk-song, and the piece concludes with a return to the sunlight of the Rhine valley for the vigorous and cheerful finale.
Tickets for these performances are $20-$60, with $75 box seats, available online 24/7 at www.rpo.org; by phone (454-2100); in-person from the RPO Box Office, 108 East Avenue, 10:00 am-5:00 pm, Monday-Saturday (non-concert Saturdays, 10:00 am-3:00 pm); and seven days a week at area Wegmans. A convenience fee may apply. The Philharmonics Series is sponsored by the Eastman Kodak Company and Bausch & Lomb.
|
|
|
Are you hosting or promoting an event in the Rochester Area? If so then we want to hear about it. Email us at editor@rochesterathome.com.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|