Thursday, March 31, 2011

A fun swing of the Pendulum

It was another interesting Pendulum series concert last night at the University of Colorado. This series is a venue for student composers to show their works, along with tried and true works from known composers.

This is the second (or third?) time that I've heard music by Elisabeth Anne Comninellis. Last night's "flight" for 8 performers was quite nice. She explained who the movements were named for, introducing me to someone I'd never hear of, Sir William Cayley. As it turns out, after a few blind alleys on Google, it was Sir GEORGE Cayley she was composing about. Regardless, the music was fine and ended with the performers disappearing ala Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony with the solo trumpet, Greg Simon, serenading the audience. If my memory serves correctly, at an earlier Pendulum series she had string quartet members move to different locations on the stage and exit individually. Must be her thing, I guess.

Hunter Ewan, a very frequent contributing composer for Pendulum, premiered his "Red River Folk Tales", a choral piece set to his own poem about growing up. Ewan has done some nice electronic music before and had an interesting "live" electronic piece done at the CU Black Box Theater with Terry Sawchuck on "processed trumpet". Here in "Tales" Ewan displayed a nice touch for choral composing. The University Choir, under Jeffrey Gemmell, sang and enunciated well, though reading along helped. I enjoyed it and thought it reminded me of the current choral superstar, Eric Whitacre. Perhaps it would have sounded better without the electronics in the background, completely a capella.

A piece by Steve Reich for 4 violins, "Violin Phase", illustrated sound shifting. The ending was amusing with the violinists ending simultaneously, as planned, and then looking at the audience with a strong sense of relief.

The concert ended with Warren Benson's "Passing Bell" with the CU Wind Symphony. It was, to say the least, loud, almost overwhelming the auditorium. I enjoyed it but was amused watching some in the audience hold their ears during the crescendos. I felt sorry for the poor harpist, plucking away for all she was worth and still being completely drowned out by the winds. For some reason I never considered the harp a wind instrument -- live and learn.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Oh Susannah

Since someone wondered if I was going to Susannah, I'll make some comments.

No, Susannah was not a Stephen Foster retrospective. Don't go expecting to hear "Camptown Races", "Old Black Joe" or "Beautiful Dreamer". This is one of America's most performed operas, written in 1955 by Carlisle Floyd. It was done several years ago at Central City, but this is the first time it was done at the University of Colorado. The setting is the evangelical hills of Tennessee and it's pretty bleak.

My wife and I went last night and we both had similar reactions. I don't like to knock the home team, but I want to be honest about all this. It was less than sterling entertainment. That doesn't mean the singers were bad, they weren't. The music was accessible and pleasant and the staging well done. What was missing was comprehension. I kept asking my wife if she could understand what was just sung and the answer was always no. The orchestra, some 44 musicians, sounded fine but too often covered the singers. Some of the cast, particularly Wei Wu and Emily Martin, had the volume, but the diction in most cases just wasn't clear. I could hear some sung words, but too often they were muffled or insufficiently loud enough. Clearly this was an opera that begs for super-titles. We are used to reading the words for operas sung in other languages, but it seems to me that sung English can often be even more unintelligible than French, Italian or German. Without comprehension the art suffers.

Should Susannah have been done in Macky Auditorium? With over 2000 seats, it was disappointing to see so many empty seats, though I've been told there were more upstairs than I would have guessed. Performing it in the Music Theatre might have been a better choice, though the large orchestra might not have fit in the pit. My gut tells me that this opera would be more accessible with smaller orchestration and a smaller venue.

Was Susannah a good opera for CU? I think not. I suspect the decision of what to perform is a function of the current crop of singers, the budget and the artistic vision of Leigh Holman. Susannah might have been a good opera for CU in concept, but compared to some other recent ones, "Dead Man Walking" comes to mind, it wasn't so hot.