Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Streaming Diary: Exuberant dancing from City Ballet, a set of captivating opera productions, the invaluable “Stars in the House”, and a little-known Andrew Lloyd Webber musical

• By drediman
• May 9, 2020
• No Comments

Eight weeks of quarantine have come and gone, and I think I would have already gone mad had it not been for the performances I’ve been able to stream at my Hell’s Kitchen apartment. Here were some highlights from the past week.

New York City Ballet’s Ashley Bouder and Joaquin De Luz in a 2018 performance of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Concerto DSCH”.

DANCE

New York City Ballet’s Digital Spring Season continued with filmed recent performances of a pair of spirited ballets, George Balanchine’s Rubies from the celebrated Jewels and Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH. This Rubies was captured on film last fall and was headlined by principal dancer Megan Fairchild and notable newcomer Mira Nadon. Set to Stravinsky’s rousing Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, this fiery ballet is pure exhilaration when done right – and Ms. Fairchild, Ms. Nadon, and the corps de ballet delivered the goods. Continuing her mid-career renaissance, Ms. Fairchild was both sassy and technically brilliant. Equally as impressive was the debut of Ms. Nadon, whose buzzed-about performance in this ballet I had missed in person. Thankfully, I was able to proverbially turn back time and experience it here. Not only was Ms. Nadon an imposing vision among the petite dynamos onstage, she’s also graced with an expressive musicality and confidence that belie her age. I look forward to seeing what’s ahead for this wonderfully talented up-and-comer.

It was also a treat to revisit Mr. Ratmansky’s carefree, often whimsical, and altogether sensational Concerto DSCH, which was filmed a year earlier than Rubies in October 2018 (set to a driving piano concerto by Shostakovich, Ratmansky created the ballet for the company a decade prior in 2008). It was wonderful to see three exciting dancers – Ashley Bouder, Gonzalo Garcia, and Joaquín De Luz – return to the parts they originated. Although each has evolved considerably as dancers and human beings during the intervening years, they still came across as unaffected and infectiously playful as the ballet required them to be. Relatively new to the ballet were the ravishing Sara Mearns and Tyler Angle (replacing the great, now-retired Wendy Whelan and Benjamin Millepied, respectively), who unsurprisingly acquitted themselves with class and panache as the piece’s “mature” couple. But the real star of the ballet was Mr. Ratmansky’s extraordinary choreography, which embodies the unstoppable exuberance and untainted idealism of youth. Invariably, the work continues to thrill audiences.

Tamara Mumford and Eric Owens in a 2016 performance of Kaija Saariaho’s “L’Amour de loin” at the Metropolitan Opera.

OPERA

In terms of opera, I began the week with a practically perfect 1998 Metropolitan Opera performance of Mozart’s immortal Le nozzi di Figaro, featuring opera stars soprano Renée Fleming and bass baritone Sir Bryn Terfel (as the Countess and Figaro, respectively) at the peak of their powers. Not only did they sound sumptuous – particularly as masterfully supported by now-maligned former Met maestro James Levine – they also impressed with their warm, natural characterizations, as befitting this most human of operas. As not the biggest fan of Sir Richard Eyre’s current drab production for the Met, I was delighted to see Jonathan Miller’s big-hearted, period-perfect production once again.

The week continued with a 2017 performance of Debussy’s only opera Pelleás et Melisande, courtesy of Vienna State Opera. I swoon at the mention of this singular opera, and happily the performance did not disappoint – from the ethereal performances to the stylized, aquatic production by Marco Arturo Marelli. My next opera viewing was the Met’s staging of Kaija Saariaho’s captivating and romantic seafaring opera L’Amour de loin, starring the excellent pairing of bass baritone Eric Owens and soprano Susanna Phillips as lovers from afar. Musically and thematically, Ms. Saariaho’s opera is a sort of spiritual companion piece to Debussy’s aforementioned opera, and it was a pleasant coincidence to have been able to experience them back-to-back. Ms. Saariaho’s opera is essentially a dreamlike parable/fairytale, which the score’s shimmering strings and disorienting abstractions (expertly conducted by Susanna Mälkki) – as well as Robert Lepage’s fantastical, visually striking staging – reflect beautifully.

I capped my opera-viewing week with yet another Met production, a 2011 performance of Capriccio, once again starring American opera diva Renée Fleming. Capriccio is Richard Strauss’s final opera, and it’s a welcome throwback to the bittersweet nostalgia of the composer’s earlier masterwork Der Rosenkavalier. Admittedly, the opera is a slight curiosity, but those willing to enter its antiquated world will be rewarded with rich detail and character. The culminating 20 minutes are particularly glorious; and in the very capable hands of Ms. Fleming, they’re imparted with reflective and aching tenderness.

John Scherer leads the company of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn’s “By Jeeves”, circa 2001.

THEATER

No one in show business is quite as quick-witted nor encyclopediacally knowledgeable as Seth Rudetsky, whose daily “Stars in the House”, which is co-hosted by his husband James Wesley, has been such an invaluable gift to theater fans during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, I can always count on Seth and James to inject much-needed levity into my day, no matter how grim things may seem. But more importantly, as a vehicle to raise money for the Actors Fund, the program has been a godsend to those whose livelihoods have been directly impacted by the widespread shutdown of the entertainment industry.

A few weeks ago on the program, I thoroughly geeked out to the reunion of the original Broadway cast of Les Misérables (the musical was my very first Broadway show, after all). A few days ago, I was similarly overjoyed to see the awesome original cast of the 1990 Tony-winning musical City of Angels – including James Naughton, Gregg Edelman, Randy Graff (a Tony-winner for the show; she also originated the coveted role of Fantine in the Broadway production of Les Miz), and Rachel York – come back together after all these years. The show is perhaps best known for the late Cy Coleman’s extraordinary music, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest jazz compositions created for the Broadway stage (after all this craziness is behind us, can we get a major New York revival stat, please?). The cast, along with lyricist David Zippel and director Michael Blakemore, shared delicious first-hand stories of the great Mr. Coleman, as well as of a Broadway of a bygone era. What a treat, indeed.

This past week, I also had the opportunity to finally see By Jeeves, the little-known, long-historied musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and prolific playwright Alan Ayckbourn. The silly musical bombed when it first premiered in the mid 1970s. A quarter of a century later, Lord Lloyd Webber and the fertile Mr. Ayckbourn took another crack at the show, giving it a quaint production – directed by Mr. Ayckbourn – that played to the material’s modest charms and very British humor. It’s this later staging (which ultimately found itself on Broadway) that has been charmingly captured on film for posterity. Although the show boasts a few cringe-worthy moments (e.g., the song “Banjo Boy”), I by and large maintained a smile on my face throughout this unapologetically breezy work.