Tag: Beethoven

Fidelio speaks to modern audiences

 

Dimitry Ivashchenko as Rocco, Elza van den Heever, Leonore and Russell Thomas, Florestan perform in Lyric Opera's production of Beethoven’s 'Fidelio.'

Dimitry Ivashchenko (Rocco), Elza van den Heever (Leonore) and Russell Thomas, (Florestan) in Lyric Opera’s ‘Fidelio.’ (Photo by Todd Rosenberg)

4 stars – Highly recommended

Lyric Opera of Chicago expounds on freedom of expression in this captivating, uplifting production of Beethoven’s Fidelio.

Florestan (Russell Thomas) is being held as a political prisoner for speaking against the corruption of prison administrator Don Pizarro (Brian Mulligan).

Don Pizarro wants Florestan silenced for good and employs the aid of his director of security, Rocco (Dimitry Ivashchenko), who refuses to murder Florestan but agrees to dig a secret grave if his boss will actually do the killing.

Florestan’s wife Leonore (Elza van den Heever) manages to disguise herself as a young man, getting a job at the prison with the intention of finding a way to free her husband.

While working at the prison, Rocco’s daughter, Marzelline (Sydney Mancasola), a secretary in his office, falls in love with Fidelio who is actually Leonore in disguise. (The opera used to be known as “Leonore.”)

Leonore uses Marzelline’s infatuation with Fidelio to gain favor with Rocco who ultimately engages Fidelio to help with the digging of Florestan’s grave. That gives Leonore the opportunity needed to at least see her husband and try to affect an escape.

Fidelio has a happy ending and thus is a story of Good triumphing over Evil. Most importantly, it is a story of hope combined with the courage to speak truth to power and to stand up to tyranny and oppression in order to right a wrong.

Elza van den Heever, Russell Thomas and company in "Fidelio" by Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Todd Rosenberg)

Elza van den Heever, Russell Thomas and company in “Fidelio”at Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Photo by Todd Rosenberg)

Fidelio is the only opera written by Beethoven, which in spite of the storyline, has a lightness that provides each character with lyrical arias and artful contrapuntal trios. It also offers the outstanding Lyric Chorus led by Michael Black, beautifully harmonious choral pieces.

The musicality of the overture has resulted in four versions of various lengths that have become part of the musical canon for orchestras worldwide since it was written. The Lyric has chosen to present the shorter version conducted by Enrique Mazzola in order to proceed with the dramatic performance.

The set design of Alexander V. Nichols is comprised of a gigantic, roughly forty-foot square, two-level cube of assembled gray steel pipes and screens, that rotates to display both the prison office and holding cells.

In Act II, the cube is reset to depict the subterranean basement where the “secret prisoner” is confined. The prison office is decorated with typewriters, filing cabinets, and water coolers while workers and prisoners are costumed in modern dress presenting an overall twentieth century vibe.

Nichols also utilizes projected images during the overture to suggest Leonore’s decision to take on the persona of Fidelio. Onstage video monitors are used to create a more contemporary atmosphere, and in the case of Florestan, to project his inner turmoil and torture induced fantasies.

It’s interesting to see how easily this 18th Century music and story transforms to modern times making this a potentially very accessible opera for younger audiences or those who may be uninitiated to this theatrical genre.

This is aided by the fact that there are no traditional recitatives but rather short bits of easily digestible spoken dialogue that bring the story together between musical numbers.

Twenty-first century audiences will appreciate the portrayal of a strong female hero and the allusions to political oppression that continues to be perpetrated throughout the world.

DETAILS: “Fidelio” is at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago, on select dates through October 10, 2024. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes with one intermission. For tickets and other information visit Lyric Opera.

Reno Lovison

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

 

A Ravinia night to remember: Emanuel Ax plays Brahms Concerto 2 and Rafael Payare conducts CSO in Beethoven Symphony 3

 

Rafael Payare conducts the CSO in Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 at Ravinia Festival. (photo credit Ravinia Festival and Kyle Dunleavy)
Rafael Payare conducts the CSO in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 at Ravinia Festival. (photo credit Ravinia Festival and Kyle Dunleavy)

 

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conductor Rafael Payare and pianist Emanuel Ax gave bravo performances at Ravinia Festival Aug. 2, 2019.

Payare, a Venezuelan conductor who has led ensembles and orchestras across the globe and will lead the San Diego Symphony as its new music director this fall, infused Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 with extra exuberance and sensitivity to its Napoleonic themes.

Although the themes are familiar to classical musical lovers, Eroica in less able hands has sometimes come across as too predictable and automatically played. But when Payare opened the symphony by (I think appropriately) upping the pace on the Allegro con brio, there was a new feeling of excitement stretching across the Pavilion and lawn.

It was in perfect contrast to what became the very expressive Marcia funebre movement in C minor followed by the CSO strings’ nimble and delightful Scherzo that went back to the symphony’s key of E-flat major.

During the symphony, the cameras for ravinia’s screens’ focused on the orchestra’s exceptional oboist, flutist and French horns.

They deserved the extra acknowledgement accorded them by Payare after the heroic symphony’s exuberant final notes drew enthusiastic applause.

 

Emanuel Ax plays Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 at Ravinia. Rafael Payare conducts the CSO in Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 at Ravinia Festival. (Ravinia Festival and Kyle Dunleavy photo)
Emanuel Ax plays Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 at Ravinia. Rafael Payare conducts the CSO in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 at Ravinia Festival. (Ravinia Festival and Kyle Dunleavy photo)

 

This interpretation of Beethoven’s epic, groundbreaking symphony was among the best I’ve heard.

It would take another epic performance to complement the first half the program.

And that is what Ax delivered with his extraordinary Brahm’s Concerto No. 2 in B –flat major.

Back at Ravinia for his 28th appearance since 1975, the 70-year-old Ax still has the powerful hands, agile fingers and emotion variations that won the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv in the 1974 and the Avery Fisher Prize in New York City in 1979.

Among the finest pianists of our time, Ax appeared to be having a love affair with the piano (or with Brahms) on Friday.

From hands crossing to land powerful chords and fingers flying across the keys to their producing lyrical waterfalls and gentle caresses, Ax married technique with sensitivity.

What audiences may not recall is that Brahms pays homage in Piano Concerto No. 2 to another instrument he likes to write for, the cello. In notes on the work, Brahms calls the section of the Andante that features a cello solo, a “concerto within a concerto.”

Ax is familiar with Brahms piano cello pairings. As a frequent partner with cellist Yo Yo Ma, the duo has won several Grammy Awards for their Brahms recordings.

As the strains of the last notes of Brahms second piano concerto echoed through the Pavilion, the audience rose, almost as one body, applauding loudly and long.

The double bill of bravo performances made Friday at Ravinia a night to remember.

(Friday was the second night to feature Beethoven symphonies and Brahms concertos. Thursday’s concert was Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor followed by pianist Yefim Bronfman playing Brahms’ Concerto No. 1 in D minor.)

For more Ravinia concerts visit Ravinia/Calendar.

Jodie Jacobs