THEATER
59E59
Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein
Book by HERSHEY FELDER, Music by LEONARD BERNSTEIN and others
"Following record-breaking runs throughout the United States, Hershey Felder---the creative force behind last year's sold-out production The Pianist of Willesden Lane---returns to 59E59 Theaters with his critically acclaimed Hershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, in which he brings one of America's greatest musical legends to life."
Conductor, composer, pianist, author, teacher, librettist, television star, and composer of West Side Story, Candide, and On the Town, Bernstein pushed all boundaries to become the world's first serious musical superstar. In Maestro, Hershey Felder combines narrative with Leonard Bernstein's composition and the music of Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler, Copland, and others, to bring to life the man the entire world knew as "Lenny."
"Felder is an extraordinary pianist, exhibiting natural phrasing and complete dynamic control. It's like seeing a really great concert in which the musician tells you the truth about his life...It's a thrilling way to theatrically present music."
-Theatermania
"A tour de force that fuses speech, song, and pianistic brilliance! Hilarious at times and awe-inspiring in Felder's unfolding of a compelling narrative while hitting every note of a varied, complex and difficult score."
-Huffington Post
"Inspiring...remarkable...watching Hershey Felder's charismatic, passionate, transforming performance, and considering Felder's own impressive career that continues to climb to greater heights, one senses there is a lot of "Lenny" in Hershey."
-Theater Pizzazz
"Maestro remains this talented performer's most revealing and most moving piece of work."
-The Chicago Tribune
"Hershey Felder's Maestro is a moving love story...his brilliant capture of a giant of a man who changed the musical landscape is an extraordinary evening of theater."
-Berkshire Fine Arts
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/theater/maestro-review.html?_r=0
Review: Nice Music, but in ‘Maestro’ He Doesn’t Look a Thing Like Lenny
Hershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” his solo show at 59E59 Theaters. Hershey Felder Presents
The riskiest moments in “Maestro,” Hershey Felder’s tribute to the conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein, come as spectators settle in at 59E59 Theaters, waiting for the performance to start. Onstage, projected in black-and-white archival television footage, is the handsome, charismatic Mr. Bernstein.
We listen to him chatting unpretentiously about music, with his trademark mix of clarity and contagious excitement. We see him in front of an orchestra, full-body passion in motion. Off the podium, he’s a telegenic ham, using humor to demystify the esoteric — inviting us into his world and making us feel welcome there.
He is a singular presence, so it requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief when the lights dim and Mr. Felder enters, portraying Bernstein. A drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, he walks down the center aisle and takes the stage, so much smaller than the man on the screen.
Bearing no physical resemblance to the person we have just seen, and speaking in a voice whose accent and rhythms are utterly dissimilar to what we have just heard, Mr. Felder begins to tell the story of Leonard Bernstein’s life and music.
For anyone expecting to spend the evening with an embodiment of Bernstein, the former music director of the New York Philharmonic, who died at 72 in 1990, this is the point at which such hopes are dashed. Mr. Felder doesn’t have the magnetism of the musician who inspired a generation of artists through his appearances on the television culture program “Omnibus” and broadcasts of the Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts.
Continue reading the main story
A consolation prize: Bernstein songs like “Somewhere” and “Maria,” from “West Side Story,” and “A Little Bit in Love,” from “Wonderful Town,” may float pleasantly through your head for some time after the performance. The music that Mr. Felder plays, quite nicely on a gleaming grand piano, is the best part of this show, which at an intermissionless 105 minutes is both overlong and insubstantial.
Directed by Joel Zwick — who also directed “George Gershwin Alone,” another one-man bio-play with music, which brought Mr. Felder to Broadway in 2001 — “Maestro” takes the form of a late-life recollection.
The son of a Jewish immigrant from Russia who saw music as a path to the poorhouse, Bernstein was an undergraduate at Harvard back when it had an admissions quota for Jews. As a young conductor, he refused to change his name, even if that was what success required. Less boldly, he hid his homosexuality behind a conventional domestic life until he couldn’t any longer — or didn’t care to.
The script lacks the necessary grace, but “Maestro” has some amusing moments, including its warm sketch of Serge Koussevitzky, the Boston Symphony music director who was an early mentor, and its digs at Jerome Robbins, who directed “West Side Story.”
Mr. Felder never manages to slip into Bernstein’s skin, though, so even these memories feel recited from the outside, not remembered from the inside. It’s a surface-skimming survey of a fascinating life.
The riskiest moments in “Maestro,” Hershey Felder’s tribute to the conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein, come as spectators settle in at 59E59 Theaters, waiting for the performance to start. Onstage, projected in black-and-white archival television footage, is the handsome, charismatic Mr. Bernstein.
We listen to him chatting unpretentiously about music, with his trademark mix of clarity and contagious excitement. We see him in front of an orchestra, full-body passion in motion. Off the podium, he’s a telegenic ham, using humor to demystify the esoteric — inviting us into his world and making us feel welcome there.
He is a singular presence, so it requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief when the lights dim and Mr. Felder enters, portraying Bernstein. A drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, he walks down the center aisle and takes the stage, so much smaller than the man on the screen.
Bearing no physical resemblance to the person we have just seen, and speaking in a voice whose accent and rhythms are utterly dissimilar to what we have just heard, Mr. Felder begins to tell the story of Leonard Bernstein’s life and music.
For anyone expecting to spend the evening with an embodiment of Bernstein, the former music director of the New York Philharmonic, who died at 72 in 1990, this is the point at which such hopes are dashed. Mr. Felder doesn’t have the magnetism of the musician who inspired a generation of artists through his appearances on the television culture program “Omnibus” and broadcasts of the Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts.
Continue reading the main story
A consolation prize: Bernstein songs like “Somewhere” and “Maria,” from “West Side Story,” and “A Little Bit in Love,” from “Wonderful Town,” may float pleasantly through your head for some time after the performance. The music that Mr. Felder plays, quite nicely on a gleaming grand piano, is the best part of this show, which at an intermissionless 105 minutes is both overlong and insubstantial.
Directed by Joel Zwick — who also directed “George Gershwin Alone,” another one-man bio-play with music, which brought Mr. Felder to Broadway in 2001 — “Maestro” takes the form of a late-life recollection.
The son of a Jewish immigrant from Russia who saw music as a path to the poorhouse, Bernstein was an undergraduate at Harvard back when it had an admissions quota for Jews. As a young conductor, he refused to change his name, even if that was what success required. Less boldly, he hid his homosexuality behind a conventional domestic life until he couldn’t any longer — or didn’t care to.
The script lacks the necessary grace, but “Maestro” has some amusing moments, including its warm sketch of Serge Koussevitzky, the Boston Symphony music director who was an early mentor, and its digs at Jerome Robbins, who directed “West Side Story.”
Mr. Felder never manages to slip into Bernstein’s skin, though, so even these memories feel recited from the outside, not remembered from the inside. It’s a surface-skimming survey of a fascinating life.
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