Thanksgiving Program at the New York Philharmonic

 (Photo: clevelandclassical.com)

(Photo: bso.org)

Andrey Boreyko, Conductor
Frank Peter Zimmerman, Violin

Mendelssohn - Overture to Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde (Son and Stranger) (1829)
Shostakovich - Violin Concerto No. 1 (1945-48)
Dvořák - Symphony No. 9, From the New World (1893)

On Tuesday night I attended the New York Philharmonic's concert featuring works by Felix Mendelssohn, Dmitri Shostakovich and Antonin Dvořák.

At the age of 20, Mendelssohn composed his one act opera Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde for a private performance for friends and family. The overture remains its best known excerpt and features a sunny virtuosity that reflected the young composer's talents.

The Shostakovich concerto provided a stark change in mood. Its anxious melodic lines and disturbing rhythms probed the depths modern angst. The third and fourth movements contained  many dazzling passages for the soloist which Zimmerman met with ease.

The New York Philharmonic commissioned Dvořák to write his New World Symphony while he was the director of the New York Conservatory from 1892 to 1895. The composer incorporated American spirituals into the score and it was fitting to hear this expansive, optimistic piece as a prelude to Thanksgiving.

It was interesting to hear the Russian conductor Boreyko's interpretation of a Czech composer's impressions of American folk music. Boreyko imbued the performance with a lilting tenderness that somehow seemed fresh and very touching, and taken together with the two earlier pieces fully demonstrated his range as a conductor. I hope that the Philharmonic plans to invite him to lead many future performances.

Mahler's Ninth with the Philharmonia Orchestra

(photo: Richard Haughton)

Due to a busy work schedule I haven't been able to blog about concerts lately but I just had to post about the Philharmonia Orchestra's incredible rendition of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 at Avery Fisher Hall last night.

All I can say is WOW. Mahler's Ninth, composed in 1910, is in my opinion one of the highlights of symphonic literature but it is the rare interpretation that can move this sprawling 90 minute score at a good pace and still leave the listener emotionally wrecked by the end.

The conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, did just that. He conducted the esteemed ensemble with glistening precision but not at the expense deeply felt emotion. The final movement in particular was just ravishing with otherworldly strings and slowly dissolving tempi. It felt like Mahler's farewell to romanticism and everything else that he loved in life.

The program, unfortunately, won't be repeated but New Yorkers will have a chance to hear this work again next spring with Michael Tilson Thomas leading the San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall.

Juan

Over the past two Saturdays I continued to experiment with acrylic.

I bought a 30 x 30 inch canvas which is huge for me and the portrait of Juan Michael, the model, was larger than life. I haven't worked with overscaled dimensions before but thought I might as well try it since one of the trends in contemporary portraiture is oversized head shots (see Andrew Salgado, Alyssa Monks, and Tai Schierenberg, among others).

I also tried saturated color, straight from the tube in certain areas like the shirt, hat, and parts of the background. Was I intensifying reality (like Lucian Freud) or flirting with garishness (like Leroy Nieman)? Who knows. I just felt like doing it and the experience was exhilirating. Using intense chroma over a large surface area was like a drug - my teacher had to tell me to stop painting before I ruined the pictorial balance.

We still have two more sessions with our current models. I think I'll continue with acrylic for now. Maybe I'll buy a few new colors or try using a weird surface - like plastic or aluminum. I wonder where I can buy those supports in Manhattan...

New paintings at the National Academy

Over the past four weeks I've been experimenting with acrylic on large canvases. A friend recently gave me a gift certificate to Utrecht so I spent it on several tubes of Golden acrylic paint. This is a new medium for me. I thought that I'd try to work with its quick drying properties for layering and abstraction.

Acrylic is great stuff. I'll admit that I had a bias against the medium since all the serious painters use oil, but I really liked manipulating its transparencies for atmospheric effects. I think they key is to buy a lot of intermediate pigments to minimize mixing and muddiness. I also tried masking (courtesy of Youtube) to get a prismatic thing going on - not quite resolved yet but I do like the results so far.

Our models were Brian and Jen, both young, goodlooking, and total professionals. It was a pleasure to work with them.

Le Nozze di Figaro

(photo: Marty Sohl/Met Opera)

Conductor: David Robertson
Countess Almaviva: Maija Kovalevska
Susanna: Mojca Erdmann
Cherubino: Christine Schäfer
Count Almaviva: Gerald Finley
Figaro: Ildar Abdrazakov
Barbarina: Ashley Emerson
Marcellina: Margaret Latimore
Don Basilio: Don Graham Hall

Work has been insanely hectic for the past few weeks and so I thought I'd take advantage of this hurricane and ensuing office closure to finally update my blog.

Last Friday I attended the season premiere of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera. I haven't seen this opera in several years and it was a nearly great performance with Robertson leading the orchestra in top form. The recitatives were accompanied by Dan Saunders on the piano which was a nice change from the traditional harpsichord.

Finley was a fine Count with the appropriately menacing but subdued hauteur that worked for him so well in the title role of Don Giovanni last season. The rest of the cast was new to me. I especially enjoyed the lovely Erdmann as Susanna and Schäfer as Cherubino. Emerson was especially charming as Barbarina. Abdrazakov was a wonderful Figaro with a robust physicality that reminded me of a young Bryn Terfel. Graham Hall as Don Basilio and Latimore as Marcellina were entertaining though a bit one dimensional but then there's not a lot of depth to their characters.

Kovalevska was the weak link in the cast. For Le Nozze to work its magic, the Countess should be a model of virtue and suffering, bringing an emotional gravitas to balance the other characters' ribald humor and silliness. Mozart's music for the Countess is full of exquisite longing but I heard none of that, with Kovaleska barreling through her arias with uneven pitch and monotonous expression. Indeed, in Porgi amor and Dove sono I was wholly unconvinced of her nobility and devotion. Instead she merely seemed like an annoyed Real Housewife whose credit card had been declined during a shopping spree.

One thing about Kovalevska though is that her comic timing was flawless. The closing ensembles in all four acts were sung beautifully in the perfect buffa style. That said, I'm tempted to see the opera again when Hei Kyung Hong takes over the role of the Countess on November 17.

As a side note, the Metropolitan Opera will resume performances tomorrow. The New York Philharmonic announced the same then cancelled a few minutes ago on Twitter and then deleted the tweet announcing the cancellation. Carnegie Hall will remain closed, presumably until that dangling crane that caused the evacuation of West 57th Street gets taken down. But I do hope that Carnegie Hall will be up and running soon. After all, they have a wonderful season ahead and of course, the show must go on.

Brian/Betty/Pigeon

Last month at the National Academy of Design we had three models, Brian, Betty, and Pigeon.

For the first painting I worked on a larger scale, 18 x 24 inches, but the rest were the usual size, about 9 x 12 inches. I'm still into the theme of impasto against blurred passages though I tried to get away from the vertical palette knife applications that seemed so obsessive earlier this year.

Brian recently moved to NYC and this was his first modelling assignment. I thought he did a great job. not just by being still and holding the pose, but also embodying a certain stage presence (he's a drama student at a conservatory).

Brian will be posing for us again for the next four weeks. I'm thinking of working even larger, maybe 24 x 36 inches, using acrylic. I got a gift certificate from Utrecht recently and splurged it on about fifteen tubes of Golden Artist Colors. I might as well learn a new medium. We'll see how that goes.

Betty's portrait was inspired by the glitch paintings of Andy Denzler.

And Pigeon was based on Ann Gale's technique, with a more intense palette.

Otello

Conductor: Semyon Bychkov
Desdemona: Renée Fleming
Otello: Johan Botha
Cassio: Michael Fabiano
Iago: Falk Struckmann
Roderigo: Eduardo Valdes
Emilia: Renée Tatum
Ludovico: James Morris

For me, Otello is one of those operas that's easy to admire but not so easy to love. Musically I think it's one of Verdi's most thrilling achievements with full bodied orchestration, great psychological depth, and some very memorable arias. But the malicious plot is such a downer, and the characters - what can I say - if they're not completely odious they're downright exasperating, except perhaps for Desdemona's maid, Emilia.

That said, I looked forward to last night's premiere of Otello at the Metropolitan Opera. I've been neglecting Verdi over the past several years (in favor of Wagner, mostly), though I did see La Traviata and Macbeth last season. I've also been avoiding Renée Fleming lately - her recent recordings and videos have begun to seem so mannered and artificial that sometimes I can barely recognize what she's singing.

Well, Fleming proved me wrong last night. Her voice may no longer seem as lush as it did ten years ago but her account of Desdemona was a model of integrity. She sang the part without any embellishments and undue emphasis. Her vocal line was pure and her emotional expression was honest and deeply felt. Her fourth act Willow Song and Ave Maria were completely unnerving in their simplicity. No histrionics, just a stoic resignation and acceptance of her fate that pretty much broke my heart.

Botha didn't fare was well in the title role. His voice sounded thin (because of allergies, as a spokesperson explained during the intermission) and his characterization was cartoonish.

Struckmann, on the other hand, was fantastic as Iago. Like Fleming, there was no overacting, he just sung his part with such tremendous authority that his every inflection sent chills through the audience. Fabiano likewise made a fine impression as Cassio, and so did Tatum as Emilia and Valdes as Roderigo.

Morris proved that he can still command the stage even with bit parts. It was a nice surprise to hear him as Ludovice. The chorus sounded a bit out of synch in the beginning but improved in the later acts.

Bychkov conducted with passion and conjured many wonderful effects in both the public and intimate scenes. The orchestra served Verdi well last night. I just might see the rest of the composer's offerings at the Met this season.