PERFORMANCE

Carnegie Hall
Dianne Reeves

“She has one of the most powerful, purposeful, and accurate voices of this or any time,” said jazz legend Wynton Marsalis of Dianne Reeves. The Grammy Award–winning vocalist is one of the foremost singers in the world. Whether she’s interpreting jazz classics or melding elements of R&B, Latin, and pop into swinging song, she thrills with every note she sings.

For Dianne Reeves, it’s all about the song. One of the premier jazz vocalists of the modern era, Reeves will only apply her golden pipes to a composition if it touches her heart. It might originate on a classic rock album, or perhaps appear as part of an R&B collection, or maybe it’s from the Great American Songbook. By the time she’s done with it, it has become a Dianne Reeves song.

Reeves’s most recent album, 2014’s Beautiful Life, opens with her interpretation of Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” and includes songs borrowed from Stevie Nicks, Ani DiFranco, and Bob Marley, as well as the standard “Stormy Weather.” It also includes songs brought to her by the young bassist-vocalist Esperanza Spalding, pianist Geri Allen, and the album’s producer, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, several of which Reeves co-wrote. “When it comes to choosing the material for a record, that’s always on me,” says Reeves. “I have my ideas, I’m open, but it’s more about lyrics than anything for me.”

Her instincts have been honed throughout a career that’s now closing in on four decades. For her hard work, she’s been rewarded with five Grammys in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category, including one for Beautiful Life. “It’s absolutely wonderful,” she says about taking home her trophies. “You still get the same jitters, and when they call your name it’s pretty amazing. It’s always a surprise.”
Fans are likely to be surprised when Reeves takes to the stage at Carnegie Hall on March 30. She plans to perform some songs from that most recent album, others from her vast catalog, and some new material. Reeves and her band—Peter Martin (piano), Romero Lubambo (guitar), Reginald Veal (bass), and Terreon Gully (drums)—are comfortable enough with one another to take risks and try new things out in front of an audience.

“We all know each other, so there’s a great deal of trust,” Reeves says. “The majority of them have their own groups and do other things, and they bring new ideas all the time. I love it because we break bread together and then we go onstage—we never know what’s going to happen. It’s exciting for me every night.”

At the end Reeves got her light and asked all in the audience to use their phones as their lights.  They gave me a chance to video a song.  It wasn't the best song, but...

MUSEUM

The Frick Collection
Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), one of the most celebrated and influential portraitists of all time, enjoyed an international career that took him from his native Flanders to Italy, France, and, ultimately, the court of Charles I in London. Van Dyck’s supremely elegant manner and convincing evocation of a sitter’s inner life — whether real or imagined — made him the favorite portraitist of many of the most powerful and interesting figures of the seventeenth century. This is the most comprehensive exhibition ever organized on Van Dyck’s activity and process as a portraitist and the first major exhibition on the artist to be held in the United States in over twenty years. Through approximately one hundred works, the exhibition explores the astounding versatility and inventiveness of a portrait specialist, the stylistic development of a draftsman and painter, and the efficiency and genius of an artist in action. Lenders include the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the British Museum and National Gallery in London, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and major private collectors such as the Duke of Devonshire and the Duke of Buccleuch.

Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture is organized by Stijn Alsteens, curator of Northern European drawings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Adam Eaker, Guest Curator at The Frick Collection. The exhibition catalogue, copublished with Yale University Press, features contributions by the curators as well as An Van Camp, Ashmolean Museum; Bert Watteeuw, Rubenianum, Antwerp; and Xavier F. Salomon, The Frick Collection. 

A site about the Van Dyck exhibit...

See a commentary about the portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio...

LINCOLN CENTER

Metropolitan Opera
House Tour

"Go behind the scenes for an exclusive look at what it takes to make operatic magic at the Met! Tours offer a fascinating backstage look at one of the world’s premiere performing arts organizations, including visits to the scenic and carpentry shops, rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, and stage area."

"The Metropolitan Opera House is one of the most famous opera houses in the world and the go-to place for New Yorker’s to experience one of the oldest theatrical art forms. Although still strongly associated with Europe, operas have a huge following of fans throughout the world and New York is noted as being one of the prime places for opera singers to showcase their skills on North American soil. The detailed plots, elaborate costumes, and fancy sets on show at the Metropolitan Opera House have made its name synonymous with class and privilege.

The Metropolitan Opera House building is a work of art within its self; high ceilings, glass chandeliers that illuminate gold, lush red carpets, sweeping stairwells…it is truly an architectural masterpiece. The building is also filled with odes to past performances and performers by displaying costumes, photos, and tidbits of information throughout its hallways. Moreover, the building is home to two enormous tapestries by the famed abstract expressionist Marc Chagall. These brilliant works of art hang in the opera houses front windows, as if welcoming visitors.

Even individuals who are not familiar with the opera appreciate the beauty of the Metropolitan Opera House. What surprisingly few people realize is that the Metropolitan Opera House actually offers guided tours of the building. These tours enable attendants to gain a deeper understanding of how the company works while also catching a glimpse of areas unseen by the general public.

Backstage tours occur during the performance season at 3pm on weekdays and Sundays at 10:30am am and 1:30 pm. As is suggested in the name, these tours actually take you backstage to see the inner workings of the Metropolitan Opera House. As a courtesy to the performers, tours are not held on final dress rehearsals dates or days when other special events are taking place in the building. 

Tours of the Met increase your understanding of how the company works. Backstage tours visit production areas not usually seen by the general public. Lincoln Center tours include the front of the house and the auditorium but do not go backstage.

The Metropolitan Opera Guild Backstage Tours are held during the Met performance season at 3:00 pm on weekdays and Sundays at 10:30 am and 1:30 pm. Tours are not held on days of final dress rehearsals, or other special events in the opera house."

Below is a bad picture of a great subject.

As we were entering the backstage area Placid Domingo walked right past us!

He was gracious.

He is the short guy on the right looking left.

 The back of the stage behind the set as it was being assembled.

There are FIVE stages!

The one stage you see, a stage left, a stage right, a back stage with the revolving floor, and an additional stage below the main stage that can be raised.

The lumber shop where the sets are made.

There is another shop for the "plastic" sets such as trees and trunks.

One of the areas where costumes are made.

The wig maker at work.

A very crowded passageway.

This is the rehearsal hall with a large mural painting by Raoul Dufy.

This is the shop where the larger sets are made.

The stage being set for the evening performance.

EASTER

Marble Collegiate Church

All of the music, Thursday evening, Friday noon, and Sunday Easter was wonderful.  Marble has a really good, high quality music program.

PERFORMANCE

Marble Collegiate Church
Good Friday Service

Good Friday Service at Marble Collegiate Church...

It is about 2 hours but the music is wonderful.  We hear a lot of really good performance in New York City but there is nothing better or higher in quality than what we hear from our church's music program.

Ear phones make it all better.

The music starts at the beginning and the service begins about 5 minutes into the video.

PERFORMANCE

NYU Skirball Presents
And Now Mozart

A trailer for An Now Mozart with the San Francisco Symphony...

An excerpt from And Now Mozart...

“Extremely funny, very orig­i­nal, and highly-skilled musi­cians. Their mix of clas­si­cal music and com­edy is absolutely unique.” JOHN MALKOVICH (ACTOR)

If Trey Parker and Matt Stone played the violin and piano, if Penn and Teller performed music instead of magic, and if Seth Macfarlane had a twin, they would be the brilliantly outrageous Igudesman & Joo. Violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyung-Ki Joo are the inventive comic duo whose hilarious mix of music, pop culture and pure zaniness has won them fans of all ages and cultures worldwide. As evidence, their YouTube sketches have attracted close to 40 million viewers.

The New York Times said of their artistry, "Their blend of classical music and comedy, laced with pop culture references and a wholly novel take on the word slapstick, is fueled by genuine, dazzling virtuosity."

Rachmaninov had big hands...

PERFORMANCE

Carnegie Hall
Pinchas Zukerkman/Orpheus Chamber Orchestra


J. C. Bach - Symphony in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 6
Mozart - Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216
Beethoven - Romance for Violin and Orchestra in G Major, Op. 40
Harold Meltzer - Vision Machine (NY Premiere)
Ravel - Le tombeau de Couperin

A taste of the concert...


Two-time Grammy Award-winner Pinchas Zukerman makes his Orpheus debut, performing light-hearted and majestic works by Mozart and Beethoven. The orchestra’s first performance of J.C. Bach’s electrifying Symphony in G Minor, Op. 6, No. 6 is followed by the premiere of award-winning composer Harold Meltzer’s new commission for Orpheus. The program closes with Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin, a gentle tribute to fallen friends.

“Zukerman seems the forever-young virtuoso: expressively resourceful, infectiously musical, technically impeccable, effortless. As usual, it was a joy to be in his musical company.” – The Los Angeles Times

“Distinguished by its languid trills and beautiful, sweet tone,” Zukerman “offers technically solid and often highly expressive playing.” – The New York Times

“Zukerman plays Beethoven with a sweetness of tone and stratospheric accuracy, as well as timeless grace and authority.” – The Independent

RECITAL

Symphony Space
Steinway Salon

Geoffrey Burleson - Piano

Works by Camille Saint-Saëns

Mazurka in G Minor, op. 24
Mazurka in B Minor, op. 66
Valse nonchalante, op. 110
Valse canariote, op. 88

Refrain (2012) by Yehudi Wyner

Preludes by David Rakowski
Pull a Wall Up (2010)
In a Regal Age Ran I (2010)
Riccio (2014)
Ain't Got No Right (2005)

Heartbreaker (2013) by Missy Mazzoli

Powerhouse Passacaglia (2015) by Geoffrey Burleson

"Burleson is a remarkable pianist, with tireless attack, unflagging rhythm and energy to burn." -The Boston Globe

"A well-done, resounding performance. Pianist Geoffrey Burleson showed off all the possibilities of the Steinway Concert Grand." -Berner Zeitung (Switzerland)

"Mr. Burleson played them with the energy and passion of a jazz player at the densest moment of a solo. He brought a similar power, as well as an improvisatory imagination, to Frank Zappa's Bebop Tango." -The New York Times 

Geoffrey Burleson has performed to wide acclaim throughout Europe and North America, and is equally active as a recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician, and jazz performer. The New York Times has hailed Mr. Burleson’s solo performances as “vibrant and compelling,” furthermore praising his “rhythmic brio, projection of rhapsodic qualities, appropriate sense of spontaneity, and rich colorings.”

Currently, Mr. Burleson is recording the complete piano works of Camille Saint-Saëns, being released on 5 CD volumes on the new Naxos Grand Piano label. Other recent releases include Roy Harris: Complete Piano Music (Naxos), and Vincent Persichetti: Complete Piano Sonatas (New World Records). The Persichetti recording was accorded high acclaim from the BBC Music Magazine (“BBC Music Choice”; 5/5 stars), a laudatory feature review in Gramophone, and was listed among the best recordings released in 2008 by Fanfare and the American Record Guide.

Mr. Burleson was winner of the Silver Medal in the International Piano Recording Competition, and won Special Commendations in the Vienna Modern Masters International Performers Competition. He was also the recipient of a DAAD grant from the German government to support a residency at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and Stony Brook University (D.M.A.), his principal teachers include Gilbert Kalish, Leonard Shure, Veronica Jochum, Lillian Freundlich, Tinka Knopf, and Audrey Bart Brown.

Mr. Burleson teaches piano at Princeton University, and is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Piano Studies at Hunter College-City University of New York.

RECITAL

Morgan Library & Museum
Young Concert Artists Series

Stephen Waarts - Violin
Chelsea Wang - Piano

Beethoven - Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24 "Spring" 
Bartok - Sonata No. 2, Sz. 87
Massenet - Méditation from Thaïs 
Kreisler - La Gitana 
Ravel - Tzigane

Last evening we attended a Chamber Music Society performance at Lincoln Center.  Many of the artists there had on their resumes that they had previously performed with and had been supported by the Young Artists Series.

These "kids" are all really good and our tickets, as members of The Morgan, are $15.00 each!  We can hear the same artist three years from now for 5 times as much.  What we heard was at the highest level and these young artists will be heard from in the future.

At any rate, its a short walk to The Morgan Museum, a pleasant recital, and an opportunity for lunch somewhere.

Waarts winning a global competition...

A recital piece when he was 16 years of age!

LINCOLN CENTER

Chamber Music Society
Mozart, Schubert, & Mendelssohn

Mozart - Quartet in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, K. 493 (1786)
Schubert - Rondo in A major for Violin and String Quartet, D. 438 (1816)
Mendelssohn - Double Concerto in D minor for Violin, Piano, and Strings (1823)

Wu Han - piano
Benjamin Bellman - violin
Kristin Lee - violin
Sean Lee - violin
Richard O'Neill - viola
Nicholas Canellakis - cello
Blake Hinson - double bass

"The virtuosity of the soloist is featured in this program of intimate concertos. Mozart’s quartet highlights the piano while Schubert places the violin in the spotlight. A true display of technical fireworks, Mendelssohn’s riveting Double Concerto features both piano and violin in a soloistic spirit."

LINCOLN CENTER

David Geffen Hall
Los Angeles Philharmonic

Gustavo Dudamel - Conductor
Tamara Mumford - Mezzo-Soprano

Mahler - Symphony No. 3 in D minor



The orchestra, the soloist, and Dudamel were all wonderful.  I expected Dudamel to be fiery and feisty but he stayed completely within the music.  I was impressed.  The Mahler was long and wonderful.

“Mr. Dudamel is a classical-music rock star…It is hard to ask for more.”

—New York Times

“Her plangent, beautifully produced genuine mezzo tone proves very moving.”

—Opera News on Tamara Mumford

Gustav Mahler said, “A symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” No work better encompasses Mahler’s cosmology than his Third Symphony, which incorporates influences from Nietzsche to Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

“Revelatory” (New York Times) mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford joins the Los Angeles Philharmonic for this comprehensive masterpiece.

On the way home we went by St. Patrick's Cathedral.

THEATER

Signature Theater
Old Hats

We sas this show two years ago and it was well worth a second viewing.

"After an extended, sold out run in 2013, Signature welcomes back Bill Irwin and David Shiner in their award-winning, critically acclaimed production of Old Hats. Called "one of the funniest shows of the past few years" by the New York Post, this production reunites the clowns with original director Tina Landau and introduces their new songstress and comic foil Shaina Taub, hailed as “a young Judy Garland meets grown-up Lisa Simpson” by the San Francisco Chronicle. Using music, technology, and movement, Irwin and Shiner combine their inimitable magic and slapstick to create an unforgettable outing that's fun for the whole family."

"CRITICS' PICK! THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN! LIFTS EVERYONE’S SPIRITS!"

 The New York Times

"DOWNRIGHT HYSTERICAL! THE RUBBER-LIMBED CLOWNS ARE AS IRRESISTIBLE AS EVER. TAUB IS RIGHT IN STEP WITH IRWIN AND SHINER’S WACKY SENSIBILITY!" 

 Entertainment Weekly

"BURSTING WITH COMIC FRESHNESS AND VITALITY!"

Hollywood Reporter 

LINCOLN CENTER

New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall

Messiaen - Turangalila-Sympnonie

Esa-Pekka Salonen - Conductor
Yuja Wang - Piano

“Superhuman, overflowing, dazzling and abandoned.” So said Messiaen of his surreal exploration of romantic love and death. Composer-in-Residence Esa-Pekka Salonen, conducting these concerts, loves its “outrageous, limitless, free nature … sweet melodies spiced with the otherworldly sound of the ondes martenot, Southern Indian rhythms … birdsong and outrageous dances.”

"Exotic, thrilling, otherworldly — those are some of the adjectives one might apply to Messiaen’s 20th century masterpiece, Turangalȋla-symphonie. Its title is based on two Sanskrit words: turanga and lȋla, meaning “time” and “love/play.” The composer described the work simply as “a song of love”— in all of its manifestations — inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, in which (at least as Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde interpreted it) transcendent love is achieved only in death. Amid the lushness and rapture — even terror — of this sprawling 10-movement score, the most striking and unusual sound to our ears is that of the ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument played on a keyboard with a slide mechanism. (Ginette Martenot, sister of the inventor of the instrument, played the ondes Martenot at the premiere.) You’ll hear it create unmistakable swooping sounds, or ring out sensuously, or function like underpinning to other goings-on in the orchestra. There’s also a major role for a virtuoso pianist and a massive battery of percussion instruments. Listening sign posts: the theme conveying sensual love in the movement titled “Joy of the Blood of the Stars” and Messiaen’s hallmark evocation of bird songs in the piano part of the movement titled “The Garden of Love’s Sleep.” One thing is practically certain about Turangalȋla-symphonie: hearing it promises to be an experience unlike any you’ve had before."

RECITAL

Morgan Library & Museum
Passion in Classical Proportions


Daria Rabotkina - Piano 

Mozart - Sonata in A minor, K. 310 
Chopin - Nocturne Op.48, No.1 
Maurice Ravel - Sonatine 
Manuel de Falla - The Three-Cornered Hat (selections) 
Grieg - Selected Lyric pieces for piano, Op. 68 
Sergei Rabotkin - Fantasy-Suite after Bizet’s Carmen, 1st Movement

This program is inspired by the Robert Owen Lehman Collection of music manuscripts, on deposit at the Morgan.

THEATER

Theater for a New Audience
Pericles - William Shakespeare

“Trevor Nunn works closely and collaboratively with his actors, but his first duty is always to the story.”

– Alexis Soloski, The New York Times
– Adam Feldman, Time Out New York, Critics’ Pick
His fluid, natural handling of the language establishes an instant intimacy with the audience.
To perform this bounteous, demanding role – a career landmark for all actors –
with such intelligence, sensitivity, and truth is a major accomplishment.” – Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

“Vividly staged by Trevor Nunn. Rich…Fantastical…Sleek.  The splendid music by Shaun Davey is played by PigPen Theatre Co.  Christian Camargo speaks the verse with marvelous clarity and invests it with the heat of real feeling.”

“★★★★ Ravishing…directorial mastery…an impressively noble Christian Camargo…the play is finally quite moving.”

“Looks and sounds great…. Nunn has cast actors who serve the verse so that the beauty pops as much as the humor. Christian Camargo speaks beautifully… with affecting dignity.” –Jesse Green, New York Magazine

“★★★★…A fabulous fairytale…Sumptuous and spectacular.” – Alexis Soloski, The Guardian

Sweeping, majestic…magical, theatrical…with music, dance, and pageantry all contributing to the glow. – The New Yorker 

Pericles tells a surging adventure story—a hero wanders Odysseus-like through the world of the Mediterranean—and climaxes with events that are seemingly miraculous.

An original score composed by Tony-nominated Shaun Davey helps convey the mystery and magic of this tale of redemption, reconciliation, and forgiveness. The acclaimed story-teller musicians of PigPen Theatre Co. lend their voices and instrumentation to the production, playing Mr. Davey’s score and performing various roles throughout.

Christian Camargo returns to TFANA, following his performances in Coriolanus and Hamlet, to play the title role. Trevor Nunn, former Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre, stages Pericles, one of Shakespeare’s late plays, for the first time in his career.

“The mighty role of Hamlet sits with remarkable ease on Christian Camargo, the tremendously gifted actor.

Review: In ‘Pericles,’ Much Ado About a Lot of Things

 “What shall be next,” says Gower, the sorely taxed narrator of Shakespeare’s complicated romance “Pericles,” preparing to introduce the next knot in the yarn. Well, you might reasonably think, what shall not be next?

Even by the standards of the late romances, rich in strange reversals and fantastical happenings, “Pericles” stands out for its tumultuous story line. Here we have not one but two shipwrecks, along with enough successful sea journeys for its hero to rack up major frequent-sailor miles. (Do you get double miles for shipwrecks?) Also: incest, a band of pirates and an innocent maid forced into a brothel, to mention just a few of the woollier elements in this rarely produced play.

Just how exotic it is might be measured by the fact that Trevor Nunn, who ran both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theater in England — both ample producers of Shakespeare, I need hardly say — has never before directed the play. (By his count, there are only two others he has not directed — yet.) The Theater for a New Audience production of “Pericles,” which opened on Thursday at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, also marks Mr. Nunn’s first American staging of a Shakespeare play.

The production, largely well acted and vividly staged, opens with a thunderclap, an apt harbinger of the stormy tale to unfold. Mr. Nunn has played fast and loose with the text (and included language from George Wilkins’s roughly contemporary prose version of the story). Even the opening speech from Gower, played with ringing authority by Raphael Nash Thompson, has been sliced and diced, although its essentials are intact.

Throughout, Mr. Nunn has resorted to similar tactics, breaking up long speeches to create more brisk exchanges between characters, reordering and eliminating scenes, turning speeches into songs. (The splendid music, by Shaun Davey, is performed by members of the PigPen Theater Co., who also play small roles.)

Purists may blanch, but the language in “Pericles” has always been a matter of debate, with many experts believing Shakespeare did not write the early acts. In any case, the verse, and the rich psychology that marks Shakespeare’s greatest works, have never been the attraction of this wonder-packed tragicomedy. It is the turbulent depiction of Pericles’ long, arduous battle with ill fortune, and the miraculous turns that restore his family to him, that give the play its appeal. This is an action-driven yarn — the equivalent in the Shakespeare canon of a popcorn picture — and Mr. Nunn’s careful editing improves the tale’s sometimes haphazard momentum.

And in Christian Camargo, who plays the title role, Mr. Nunn has an actor who grounds the play in solid if somber emotion. An experienced Shakespearean — his Hamlet for the same company ranks among the finest I’ve seen — Mr. Camargo speaks the verse with marvelous clarity, and invests it with the heat of real feeling, as Pericles meets misfortune with fortitude until, eventually, his weather-beaten spirit sags and he falls into a dank depression.

The sleek-looking production unfolds on a mostly bare stage. The set design, by Robert Jones, is dominated by a huge circular sculpture that looms at the back. Resembling at some points a crater, a moon or a giant porthole, it also could be seen as a giant, godlike eye watching over the proceedings with chilly indifference. (“O you gods!” Pericles cries at one dire point. “Why do you make us love your worldly gifts, and then snatch those gifts away?”) Worn metal panels open and close over it throughout, like the slow blinking of that eye, as the action moves among several Mediterranean locations.

The parade of extravagant costumes, by Constance Hoffman, brings a colorful injection of visual drama to the proceedings, too. As the play begins, Pericles, in search of a wife, calls upon Antiochus (Earl Baker Jr.) and his daughter (Sam Morales), who are both clad in richly colored, pleated robes that recall the signature style of the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake.

Here Pericles, himself attired in a fetching sheath of mottled lavender (whatever happened to Mary McFadden, anyway?), must win his bride by solving a dark riddle that reveals the truth: Antiochus and his daughter have been rather more intimate than is seemly.

Fleeing Antiochus’ designs upon his life, Pericles eventually goes on a voyage of mercy to Tarsus, where the governor, Cleon (a dignified Will Swenson), and his wife, Dionyza (Nina Hellman, doing a fine junior-league Lady Macbeth), are grateful for the food his ships bring to their starving populace. But their gothic attire (my companion clocked it as Jean-Paul Gaultier-inspired) hints at the nefarious role they will play when fortune toys with Pericles again.

After being shipwrecked on the shores of Pentapolis, Pericles at last finds a suitable bride in Thaisa (Gia Crovatin), the daughter of the king, Simonides (John Rothman). Ms. Crovatin, lovely-looking though she is, unfortunately fails to bring much bloom or pathos to her role; and pathos is definitely a requirement, given that she is soon to die (apparently) during the next shipwreck, just after having given birth to a daughter.

Are you keeping up? Let’s take up the tale 16 years later, as Pericles’ daughter, Marina (Lilly Englert), having been brought up by Cleon and Dionyza (long story), falls afoul of the queen, so far does she outshine Dionyza’s own daughter. Ms. Hellman comes into her own here, spitting enmity as she plots to have Marina killed. But lo! Before her evil designs can be fulfilled, Marina is kidnapped by pirates, and finds herself sold into prostitution. Stuff happens.

The comic scenes that follow are less funny than in some other versions I’ve seen, as the Bawd who runs the brothel, played with foot-stomping exasperation by Patrice Johnson Chevannes, becomes incensed that Marina’s luminous virtuousness turns customers away. Unfortunately Ms. Englert’s Marina seems more petulant and prissy than so radiantly pure of heart that her words could turn sinners instantly repentant.

Even with mildly disappointing performances in some key roles, I found myself, as always, entranced by the final scenes, when the aggrieved Pericles —having spent years in mourning for his wife and daughter —re-enters the story, his misery plainly etched on Mr. Camargo’s pale, darkly expressive face. The moments of recognition and reconciliation almost always bring me to the edge of tears, and did so once again here. After all that waterlogged woe, it’s hard not to feel wrung out with emotion when Pericles reaches safe harbor at last.

RECITAL

Marble Collegiate Church
Noontime Organ Recital Series

RECITAL

Merkin Hall
Young Artists Concert Series

Daniel Gebhardt - Piano

Beethoven  -  Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31, No 1

Liszt  -  Sonata in B minor, S. 178
Toniako  -  YCA Composer-in Residence: New work for solo piano

“Lebhardt is gifted with a delicate sensibility and perfect dexterity…Ravel’s Scarbo was a pianistic explosion in which fragments of melodies shone brightly like dazzling bells.”  - Res Musica

"22-year-old Hungarian pianist Daniel Lebhardt won First Prize at the 2014 Young Concert Artists European Auditions in Paris, and then won YCA’s International Auditions in New York. Among his many other accolades, Mr. Lebhardt won First Prize at the Russian Music International Piano Competition in California, First Prize at the Citta di Gorizia International Piano Competition in Italy, First Prize at the Kosice International Piano Competition in Slovakia, and First Prize at the Carl Filtsch International Piano Competition in Romania. Most recently, he won the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) 2015 Auditions in London.  Mr. Lebhardt has given recitals at the Bela Bartok Memorial House in Budapest, at the Senate House in London, and at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, and has also concertized in Hungary, Austria and Japan. As a result of winning the Royal Academy of Music’s prestigious Patron’s Award, Mr. Lebhardt gave his Wigmore Hall recital debut in May 2015."




Daniel Lebhardt Shows Daring Command in a New York Debut
Anthony Tommasini | March 2, 2016
 

Even before the 23-year-old Hungarian pianist Daniel Lebhardt began his New York debut recital on Tuesday night, I was impressed by the adventurous program he had chosen. For this performance at Merkin Concert Hall, Mr. Lebhardt, a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, played an overlooked Beethoven sonata, followed by the premiere of a substantive piece by Tonia Ko, ending with a cornerstone of the repertory (by a fellow Hungarian): Liszt’s daunting Sonata in B minor.

It took imagination to open with Beethoven’s Sonata No. 16 in G (Op. 31, No. 1). While many of this composer’s works are run through with humor, this ebullient sonata can seem almost slapstick. The opening Allegro unfolds in bursts of spiraling runs and scale fragments punctuated by chords that are slightly, and deliberately, out of sync. Taking a daringly fast tempo, Mr. Lebhardt dispatched the music with scintillating crispness and conveyed its brash humor. But the breathless energy of his account also teased out the sonata’s heedless daring. He revealed the slyness at work in the Adagio, with its almost mock-elegant trills and swirling passagework. The final Rondo was an impish, brilliant delight.

Ms. Ko, a composer in residence with Young Concert Artists, wrote in a program note that her “Games of Belief” was inspired by Schumann’s fanciful piano works, especially his “Scenes From Childhood” suite. Her captivating score plays musical games of sound and color, often requiring Mr. Lebhardt to strike keys with one hand while, leaning into the piano, moving his other over the strings to create sounds that combined percussive thumps with sighing harmonics. The more
traditional elements involved rustling runs, skittish riffs and high tinkling figures that evoked
pagoda chimes, all splendidly played.

Liszt’s visionary Sonata in B minor is an epic fantasy lasting nearly 30 minutes, shifting from bursts of wildness to passages of profundity. Just playing it commandingly, as Mr. Lebhardt did, is difficult enough. He brought narrative sweep and youthful abandon to the piece, along with power, poetry and formidable technique. As an encore, he played Bartok's charming “Evening in Transylvania” from “10 Easy Piano Pieces,” the perfect cap to a demanding program.