Two theatre companies open their season

The Lyric Stage has opened their 2016-7 with a hit! Company, book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, opened on Broadway in 1970. While some of the references are a bit dated, the concept of marriage and relationships is as fresh as ever. The basic plot, if it can be called that, revolves around Bobby, a single 30-something in New York, all of whose friends are married and want to get him married. The play explores the marriages of his friends through short vignettes, as well as Bobby’s angst at his status. The cast includes many of the Boston theatre scene regulars, and are uniformly strong. The singing is top-notch and the dance numbers clever. Among the funnier scenes are the barely-controlled karate bout between Sarah (Kerri Wilson) and Harry (Davron Monroe) and Amy’s (Erica Spyres) bad case of cold feet just before her wedding to her long-term boyfriend, Paul (Tyler Simahk). The opening play at the New Rep, Regular Singing, is more of a mixed bag. The fourth and final play by Richard Nelson in his Apple Family Plays takes place over a single evening. The personae are four adult siblings, three sisters and a brother, gathered in the family home where the ex-husband of one of the sisters is dying upstairs. Apparently a visiting afternoon for friends has concluded and the siblings, along with one sister’s husband, are talking. They are joined by an uncle, a once-famous actor now in the early stages of dementia. The family dynamics are explored in more detail than we really care about, and since the evening occurs on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, references to that event are dragged in. The cast is a strong one, and some of the dialog is witty, but it is hard to care too much about the characters.

Beautiful music in magnificent buildings

Last week we were at the Buzzards Bay Musicfest, a compact summer event with five concerts held over four evenings and an afternoon, all presented in the spacious comfortable auditorium at Tabor Academy. This week we attended an event very nearby but at the opposite end stylistically: the Newport Music Festival. This was the festival’s 48th season, and it presented 61 concerts over 17 days. The venues included the renowned mansions of Bellevue Avenue, churches and museums. The venues are both a strength and a limitation. Who could not enjoy listening to gorgeous music in the main hall of The Breakers? At the same time, use of these facilities meant you were sitting in folding chairs most of the time, making backaches a hazard. It also meant that the repertoire was almost exclusively chamber music, as none of the venues had the space for a full orchestra as well as an audience. The music presented was almost exclusively from the giants of 18th 19th and early 20th century composition: Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Mozart dominated. There was very little from contemporary composers or early music. One interesting novelty was an evening featuring a Chinese master of the pipa both as soloist and filling in the violin part of a quartet. Another inventive presentation was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #3 with a second piano playing the orchestral part. The music was uniformly high quality, and the event well-worth putting on your calendar for next year.

Beautiful Music by the Sea

For classical music enthusiasts, summer is festival time. All around the country, from Marlboro to Wolf Trap, musicians and listeners gather. One of the finest festivals is held right here, in the seaside town of Marion. The 20th annual Buzzards Bay Musicfest just concluded another successful week. The festival is held at Tabor Academy’s Hoyt Hall, with comfortable seating, AC and excellent acoustics. The concerts are free to all, supported by donations from the community. The musicians, many of whom have been coming for all 20 years, are national-caliber, hailing from major orchestras around the country. They live with host families in town and present a variety of performances. This year we had two orchestral concerts, the opener featuring a Hummel bassoon concerto, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #1 and his 8th Symphony and the closing performance Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Haydn’s Drum Roll Symphony. The second and third concerts featured chamber music, modern and classic. A particularly interesting piece of programming was to feature two works for harp, winds and strings: Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro on one day and a recently commissioned work by Canadian composer Mozetich, Angels in Flight, on another. The harp was a new addition to the festival, but hopefully will return, as harpist Rita Costanzi was very well-received. The Saturday evening concert featured jazz: The Orrin Evans Quartet. This was the third year for the introduction of a jazz evening and this has proven to be the best-attended of any of the concerts. It is hard to single out any musician, as all were superb, but David Wehr on piano did brilliantly in the Beethoven and shone in the piano quintets. Violinist Charles Stegeman acted as music director and concert master, and took front stage in the Mozart Sinfonia. Mark your calendars for next July!

The Folk Festival resounds in New Bedford

The 21st New Bedford Folk Festival took place under ideal weather – not too hot – and once again showed why it is a jewel of the city. For 20 years Alan and Helene Korolenko had run the entire festival, and moans were heard around New England when they announced that last year’s was their last; the effort involved had gotten to be too much. Fortunately for folk music fans, the Zeiterion Theatre staff took up the burden of organizing the festival while Alan and Helene resumed artistic direction. The organization was superb. Past festivals had been held over the July 4 weekend, which led to conflicts with other activities. This year’s dates were the weekend after, allowing festival goers to attend more of the event. The festival was spread out over downtown New Bedford, with seven venues operating simultaneously most of the weekend. New was use of the Z – this beautiful 1200 seat theatre was a marvelous addition. It was used for the more well-known artists during the day, and served as the only site for the late evening performances Saturday and Sunday, when it was filled to capacity. Also new and welcome was a “food court” set up near the Z on Purchase street, with a wide variety of vendors offering quick meals that could be consumed between performances. The performers were the usual mix of well-known folk singers such as Cheryl Wheeler, Garnet Rogers, Ellis Paul, Kate and Livingston Taylor and John Gorka; lesser known but excellent groups from around the Northeast and Canada and local artists. One group we had never heard before but plan to follow was Miss Rosie - an energetic quintet of young musicians putting a new spin on old songs. Kudos to all involved, and may the festival continue!

Peter and the Star Catcher light up the Lyric Stage

Peter and the Star Catcher, now playing at the Lyric Stage, is a high-energy romp that is well worth an evening. The plot loosely forms a “pre-quel” to Peter Pan. We meet three orphan boys being shipped off to a tropic kingdom where they will be given to the king, who plans to serve them to his snakes. One of the boys is so abandoned that he has no name. Travelling on a faster boat to the same destination are Lord Aster and his plucky daughter Molly who are secretly carrying a trunk of “star stuff” that has magical powers for good or evil and Molly’s chaperone, Mrs. Bumbrake, hilariously played in drag by Will McGarrahan. Aware that Lord Aster has something valuable and determined to steal it is the pirate Black Stache and his bumbling henchman, Mr. Smee. The plot is less important than the witty dialog and shenanigans played to a musical accompaniment. Ed Hoopman as Stache has the best lines and hams it up hilariously. At the opening of the second act the entire cast come out dressed as mermaids to do a dance number, and later Will does double duty as another mermaid who starts the boy on his way to becoming Peter Pan. Plot twists abound, and the energetic cast never let up for a moment. Erica Spyres as Molly and Marc Pierre as Peter have great chemistry together. The show plays for another two weeks. Go see it.

H+H goes out with dramatic flare

Handel’s Saul is a classic oratorio in form, with orchestra, chorus and soloists who take their turn, script in hand, at the front, but very operatic in temperament. The story is the biblical tale: David has saved Israel by killing Goliath and returns to a hero’s welcome. King Saul is jealous and fearful of being replaced by the people’s new favorite and wants David dead. He tries to enlist his son Jonathan to kill David, but Jonathon is friends with David and unwilling to obey his father. The H+H chorus was in its usual magnificent form. The quality of the chorus is testified by the use of chorus members to take smaller solo roles, with no obvious difference the quality of the voices compared to the five featured soloists. Making a brief but joyful appearance was the Young Women’s Chamber Choir, waving ribbons and welcoming home the hero. The role of David was played by countertenor Iestyn Davies. I apologize to all fans of Richard Dyer-Bennett, but I have never enjoyed the counter-tenor voice. When David and Micha were performing duets it sounded as if two sopranos were on stage. Both sopranos had beautiful voices, though Joelle Harvey seemed a bit tentative at times. Elizabeth Atherton showed her operatic heritage with dramatic flair; when she sang her scorn of the commoner, David, scorn fairly dripped from her face. She did have a minor annoying facial tic that should be corrected. Bass-baritone Jonathan Best played the Lear-like King Saul to a T and was in fine voice. Perhaps the weakest link was tenor Robert Murray as Jonathan. His singing and acting were somewhat too low-key. The H+H orchestra, augmented with kettle drum, harp and lute, was as magnificent as expected. A fine end to the bicentennial season.

Giants Visit Symphony Hall

One of the delights of many BSO concerts is the chance to experience performances by very well-known artists, seeing in person those who you have heard on records and radio broadcasts. This was the case last weekend, when the first half of the program featured Murray Perahia, one of America's greatest living pianists, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. Beethoven changed the format of the concerto from the traditional showcasing of virtuostic flourishes by the soloist to a true partnership between piano and orchestra. The first movement begins with solo piano instead of the orchestral introduction, and a dialog then ensues. Fitting a work from history's greatest composer, it is hard to say whether the solo piano or orchestral potion is more beautiful, but both were admirably performed. After intermission, Bernard Haitink conducted the BSO in Mahler's Symphony No 1. Maestro Haitink was the renowned conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam for 27 years and has conducted major orchestras around the world. It is hard to listen to a classical music station without hearing works he conducts. Mahler is not one of our favorite composers. Too many of his works seem to include everything but the kitchen sink, without obvious rhyme or reason. The Symphony No. 1 fits this mold, variably soft and crashing. It includes a segment of Frere Jacques done in minor mode, and klezmer-like segments. Played by a lesser orchestra we would have been tempted to leave, but with the polished performance of the BSO and the magnificent acoustics of Symphony Hall, it was an almost enjoyable experience.