Music News
Beatles + Cirque = the View From Within
How was Cirque du Soleil’s “The Beatles/Love” show created? The documentary is making its fascinating debut, demonstrating the many months of difficult preparation — from Montreal to London to Las Vegas — rehearsals, close-ups of “creative differences,” and a good part of the show itself.
Adrian Will’s All Together Now — also the name of a dozen films and TV shows through the years, as well as the Beatles song — is grand, exhilarating, and touching entertainment. It is of special interest to those who like to see what goes on backstage, and to those who want to experience, from the viewpoint of a fly on the wall, the coming together of a work of art. (Select “long trailer” to see excerpts from the documentary, but first be sure to turn off the short trailer, which starts automatically.)
To be shown at the Mill Valley Film Festival on Oct. 5 and 6, All Together Now will also be screened at a London festival on Oct. 9 and goes into U.S. commercial distribution on DVD on Oct. 21.
Born of an idea by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, writer/director Dominic Champagne, and the Beatles’ George Harrison, the plan for the show went on after Harrison’s death in 2001.
Guy Laliberté and Dominic Champagne
Eventually, there was a degree of participation by the two surviving Beatles — Paul McCartney and Ringo Star — and the widows of the other two (Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison), but the real, vital participation came from legendary “fifth Beatle” Sir George Martin and his son, Giles.
It is the work and relationship of the Martins that gives All Together Now its meaning and poignancy. The older Martin, 82, was producer, arranger, and music director for the Beatles throughout their career. He was already famous when he joined them in 1962, after collaboration with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Rolf Harris, Flanders & Swann, Shirley Abicair, and others.
George Martin
George and Giles worked together to create the 90-minute soundscape that’s the backbone of Love, a Beatles symphony put together in Abbey Road Studios in London. “We deconstructed [the songs] and put them back together so that the music works in a sort of surround format,” on hundreds of speakers in the Mirage Hotel theater built especially for the show. The Martins then took the music to Montreal to work with producer/diplomat Laliberté and writer/director Dominic Champagne to create the show.
Thanks to the contract Laliberté managed to arrange with Beatles representative Apple Corps Ltd., the good offices of George Martin, and Laliberté’s gentle but firm “protection” of the superbly talented, but rather “too-nice” Champagne, the show managed to resist Yoko Ono’s occasional attempts to “co-direct.” There are priceless scenes of Champagne’s (justified) apprehensiveness, and Yoko’s furious note-taking at rehearsals, even while knowing that she has no right to change anything. I wonder if anyone has ever “handled” Yoko as well as Laliberté.
Yoko Ono
Olivia Harrison managed to overcome her initial suspicions about her husband not getting his due; McCartney and Ringo were generous and supportive pretty much all the way through. But these relationships form only a fraction of the film — most of it is a wonderful mixture of the music and the history of the Beatles seen and heard through the perspective of the show and its creation. The sound is sensational or, at least, it was at my Dolby Laboratories Screening Room preview.
Addendum from a friend, veteran audio industry professional Garry Margolis:
The Beatles’ Love, the massive soundscape created by the Martins from the Beatles’ original tracks, is available on Capitol/EMI in both a CD two-channel mixdown and in multichannel DVD-Audio/Video — the latter is packaged with the two-channel CD.
Those with a surround sound system can play the DVD on either a DVD-Audio player (which will reproduce the uncompressed multichannel audio) or a DVD-Video player (which will reproduce a compressed Dolby Digital multichannel version that sounds very good).
The surround realization is spectacular. The reimagining of the music is heard in much greater detail when five loudspeakers reproduce it. If one has access to a multichannel system, I strongly recommend the DVD version.
Sadly, George Martin’s hearing was irrevocably damaged by extended listening at extremely high levels, and he has difficulty understanding speech. He was the keynote speaker at an Audio Engineering Society convention a few years ago, and he spoke about hearing conservation. His son Giles was at his side to relay the questions to him from the floor.
However, the usual form of noise-related hearing damage affects primarily the 2-4 KHz range, where speech intelligibility is concentrated, so he most likely could hear well enough to be fully involved in the music production.
NOTE: Hearing loss is an occupational hazard not only for rockers. According to some studies an even higher number of orchestral musicians are afflicted. Take good care of your ears.
Alexander Quartet Series on KALW
Saturday mornings may not be the perfect time for going to concerts, even if musicologist Robert Greenberg and the Alexander Quartet are on the program. But be of good cheer: You can experience San Francisco Performances‘ remarkable “Explorations in Music” series from the comfort of your home (or, for the more health-conscious, while walking) on Monday evenings.
KALW-FM, 91.7, and KALW on the Web will carry last season’s programs, Oct. 6 through Nov. 17, in two-hour broadcasts, starting at 9 p.m. Here are just a few examples:
— Oct. 6: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet and Lou Harrison’s Quartet Set
— Oct. 13: Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in G Major, Op. 76, No. 1 and Elliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 2
— Oct. 20: Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1 and Robert Greenberg’s String Quartet No. 3
— Oct. 27: Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 and Wayne Peterson’s String Quartet No. 2
— Nov. 3: Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 (”Death and the Maiden”) and George Crumb’s Black Angels (Images I) for electric string quartet
— Nov. 10: Garrick Ohlsson and Robert Greenberg — “The Russian Piano: Rachmaninoff and Scriabin”
In January, the new Greenberg-Alexander Quartet series begins at Herbst Theatre, featuring works by Mendelssohn, in honor of the 200th anniversary of his birth. Since 1989, the Alexander String Quartet — violinists Zakarias Grafilo and Frederick Lifsitz, violist Paul Yarbrough, and cellist Sandy Wilson — has been Quartet-in-Residence of San Francisco Performances.
Alexander Quartet
Surviving the Real ‘Degenerates’
In advance of the March 21-29 Jewish Music Festival, the organization presents a concert this Sunday of “The Degenerate Music of Weimar Berlin.” Members of the San Francisco Symphony, Ballet, and Opera will perform music of Kurt Weill, Arnold Schoenberg, and Hanns Eisler. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 5 at the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay in Berkeley.
Emerging Nazi power in 1933 put an end to the 14 years of the Weimar Republic’s attempt to sustain a liberal democracy and protect its explosively creative (and often chaotic) artistic environment. As many of the era’s composers and performers were Jewish, Nazi anti-Semitic and antidemocratic drives fused in denouncing and persecuting the artists as “degenerates.” Many artists fled Nazi Germany, many others perished in concentration camps.
This opening program of celebrating the creators of music in this creative and tragic period features Susan Waterfall (piano, narrator, and co-founder of the Mendocino Music Festival), Mary Chun (conductor of Earplay), soprano Erin Neff, San Francisco Ballet concertmaster Roy Malan, cellist Jill Rachuy Brindel and violist Don Ehrlich of the San Francisco Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque principal flutist Mindy Rosenfeld, and others. Tickets for the event are $15-$20, available online.
Mary Chun
Korngold Redux
San Francisco Opera’s second performance of Die tote Stadt, Friday evening, was mostly a repeat of the superb Tuesday premiere. Emily Magee’s wig stayed on this time, but there was a big bump from the moving ceiling, but once again, it was “ITMS” — It’s The Music, Stupid!
How glorious it is, a rich tapestry of countless beautiful phrases, all coming together. The finale is definitely the purest musical magic Richard Strauss never wrote. Donald Runnicles and the Opera Orchestra were doing great work, perhaps a step down from the white heat of the premiere. As to those who complain about “volume” — it’s a symphonic work, OK? And yet, Runnicles steps on the singers’ lines far less often than Korngold’s score would encourage it. He might have been a genius at 20, but he had no idea about balance.
Emily Magee
Photo by Terrence McCarthy
Magee’s Marie/Marietta was outstanding again, perhaps a bit less so than on Tuesday; Torsten Kerl’s Paul was even better than at the premiere, in spite of the fact that at the beginning of both the first and second acts, there was momentary hoarseness in his voice — he kept singing the impossibly difficult part, and overcame the problem. The Wagnerian duets by Magee and Kerl, with Runnicles’ orchestra thundering under them, were fabulous.
I was surprised and delighted by Lucas Meachem’s Fritz/Frank. He was not known for subtlety during his Merola and Adler years here, but now he sings with an amazing measure of refinement. His quiet, simple, unshowy “Pierrot’s Tanzlied” can be compared favorably with the best. Hermann Prey, a personal favorite (could he have died 10 years ago?! what a loss …), sang the aria with the most velvety voice imaginable, but he punched it up in a few places — especially at “Rausch!” — and Meachem doesn’t do that. With the combination of a great voice and his newfangled maturity he will go far.
You, on the other hand, need only to take MUNI to the War Memorial, to catch one or more of the remaining four performances. Judging by Friday’s attendance, rush tickets are certain to be available — $25 for students, $30 for seniors and military.
Torsten Kerl and double as two images of Paul
Familial Take on Die tote Stadt
Kathrin Korngold Hubbard is Erich Korngold’s granddaughter, a manager of the composer’s estate, EWK Investments of Portland, Oregon. Both she (a violinist) and her husband (a cellist) played in the Deutsche Oper Berlin production of Die tote Stadt, performed in Los Angeles in 1985.
San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley invited Kathrin Korngold and her family to the San Francisco Opera premiere last Tuesday, and Classical Voice asked for her impressions of the evening.
The Korngold grandchildren: Leslie, Kathrin, and Gary
A day doesn’t go by that my life isn’t affected in one way or another by my grandfather’s memory and his music. September 23 was no exception. Thanks to the generosity of David Gockley, there was a veritable gaggle of Korngolds in Box A of the War Memorial: two grandchildren, their spouses and — most importantly — my mother, Mrs. Ernst Korngold, the composer’s daughter-in-law.
I have had the good fortune of attending several productions of Die tote Stadt and, in fact, I had seen the premiere of the Willy Decker version at the Salzburg Festival in 2004. That summer, I was completely entranced by the staging, the costuming, the glorious voices and, especially, the Vienna Philharmonic. Knowing that Maestro Runnicles was the conductor of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, I wondered whether this production might end up stateside. Happily, just a mere four years later, it did, and I was not to be disappointed.
In fact, if I might be so bold as to proffer, this San Francisco orchestra is superior in many ways to that which I heard in the Motherland! But don’t just take it from me. At the party after the premiere here, both Donald Runnicles and Torsten Kerl voiced the same opinion.
Runnicles clearly loves the music, but not so much as to allow the orchestra to overbalance the superb voices on stage. As musicians, my husband and I have performed this work. What a thrill it was to be sitting in the pit, playing that glorious, and might I add, fiendishly difficult score. I’ve also had the pleasure of seeing the Frank Corsaro production in New York, both in 1976 and 2006.
Korngold and his family are very fortunate to have such devoted directors and musicians to make the magic continue to happen again and again. With performances at Covent Garden and Venice coming in January 2009, Die tote Stadt has most assuredly taken its rightful place, once again, in the repertoire.
Sixteen-year-old Erich Korngold, in 1913, when he completed his first opera, Der Ring des Polykrates
San Francisco Symphony’s ‘Piano Trio’
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, three of the finest pianists around will play a kind of felicitous relay with the Symphony at Davies Symphony Hall in the coming days. From Oct. 9 to 11 it’s Emanuel Ax, featured in Szymanowski’s Symphony No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra, on Oct. 12 and 19, András Schiff continues his two-year cycle of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas, and Leon Fleisher celebrates his 80th birthday with appearances from Oct. 16 to 18. Besides the rarely heard Szymanowski work, Ax will also perform Richard Strauss’ Burleske for Piano and Orchestra. The concerts are conducted by Toronto Symphony Music Director Peter Oundjian, who has also programmed Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini for these concerts. Schiff performs Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 16 and 17 (Tempest), 18 and 21 (Waldstein) on Oct. 12, and Sonatas Nos. 22, 23 (Appassionata), 24, 25, and 26 (Les Adieux) on Oct. 19. Fleisher is the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, with conductor Marek Janowski. The program also includes Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major.
Emanuel Ax, András Schiff, Leon Fleisher
Of the Sound of Music
Delving into the ever-controversial matter of War Memorial Opera House acoustics, where some say music sounds different from each seat, the biggest surprise came from a member of the Opera Chorus. Asked if the orchestra can sound too loud on stage, she said:
The on-stage acoustics really don’t let you hear much of anything when placed so far up stage. Even when we are right up front, you often cannot hear the instruments at all when they play softly. This is why we have a rather extensive monitor system back stage to compensate.
This impromptu “survey” was prompted by responses to Die tote Stadt, some enthusiastic about Donald Runnicles’ conducting, and some complaining about how “ear-splitting” it was. Does the listener’s position have something to do with the perception?
I moved around and heard outstanding balance from row E, row O, and the orchestra-level standing room at two performances. In support, from a fanatical opera fan, of excellent judgment, from the Balcony Circle:
I heard instrumentation in the score I’d never heard on any recording. Flute would pop up here and there, and piano was very clearly heard. Yet, the Act 2 glory of the City of Bruges was appropriately forte but with the emphasis on the bass tones, making the scene erupt like the roll of a thunder clap. It was staggering. And yet you could hear the delicate doubling of the voice with instruments but it served to lift the voices and never cover them.
From a musician with a long record of attending performances:
As you move back on the main floor, voices lose their edge, but the orchestra has more opportunity to rise out of the pit and show. I’ve sat in Row E and know the difference. In row E, especially if you’re on the aisle, what comes through strongest are the instruments in the pit in line with the aisle. Further back, you get the whole sonic picture. So what you heard of the orchestra is not somebody sitting in, say, M-1.
Similarly, if you sit in row A of Balcony Circle, where I have sat many times with a friend who has a subscription, the orchestra rings out full and clear because the sound is free to rise unobstructed. As you go farther back, due to the angle, the orchestra is subdued, but the resonance of voices grows. Certainly in the balcony itself, rows K and L are far better for voices than row C, where I once had a subscription. I’ve moved up and down and noticed the difference.
And:
I for one have never heard the rich tapestry of orchestral textures and array of instrumentation on any recording I have. What Runnicles does is pure genius.
The final word on acoustics, quite beyond dispute, is the uncanny clarity of the sound heard from the top of the balcony. If you want to know the acoustic truth of a performance, listen from there.
MTT/SFS in Carnegie Hall
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony opened the Carnegie Hall season last week with a celebration of Leonard Bernstein. Among the numerous reports of the event:
Don Giovanni Online
The Royal Opera House’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, directed by San Francisco Opera Artistic Adviser Francesca Zambello, will be web cast on Oct. 5 at the company’s main site. As part of the introduction of the site, Royal Opera is making it possible to view other complete operas and ballets online. Don Giovanni, filmed on Sept. 8, will be available free of charge in its entirety and will feature subtitles, listening notes and a podcast with Zambello. The site also features archival material, a photo library and first-night cast lists dating back to 1946.
Simon Keenlyside sings the title role
Glass-Disney: ‘Perfect American’
Philip Glass has been commissioned by the New York City Opera to compose an opera portraying the final months of Walt Disney’s life. The announcement was made Monday by Gerard Mortier, the company’s incoming general manager.
The opera, The Perfect American, is based on a recent novel by Peter Stephan Jungk. It will open City Opera’s 2012-2013 season and honor the composer’s 75th birthday. Mortier scrapped the traditional 2008-2009 season while the company’s home at Lincoln Center undergoes a $200 million renovation. Instead of staged operas, the company is presenting concert performances around the city. As part of the 2009-2010 season City Opera will present Glass’ Einstein on the Beach, which was first staged in New York in 1992. The season will focus on 20th-century works.
“Perfect American”
Janos Gereben (janosg@gmail.com) is a regular contributor to San Francisco Classical Voice.
©2008 By Janos Gereben, all rights reserved.