The Louisville Ballet’s upcoming triple bill — archaic theater jargon for three short pieces in one evening — is intriguing at a couple of levels. The range and variety of the choreography appeal, of course, but what caught my eye was the musical interest of the varied and contrasted scores. Much of the sound emerging from the ballet pit can be mere note-spinning with a beat, but for these programs on Friday, March 10 (at 8 p.m.), and Saturday, March 11 (at 2 and 8 p.m.), the scores chosen are fine ones. It may seem a pity therefore that the music will be canned rather than live, but given the nature of the three pieces it would have taken the resources of the federal budget to assemble the appropriate musicians and singers.
The whole program is entitled "Life Journeys," and first up is a setting of Vivaldi’s Gloria choreographed by company principal dancer Mikelle Bruzina. The baroque splendors of the Venetian master will be realized by the legendary Robert Shaw with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir and soloists led by Dawn Upshaw. The ballet seeks to explore a young man’s search for a balance in life between idealistic and materialistic values.
Ben Stevenson is a highly ranked choreographer with a huge body of work for companies all over the world. The theme of "Life Journeys," and especially the passage from life into death, is set to one of the glories of the late-Romantic repertoire, Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. These are among the most meltingly beautiful of their sort and seem almost a valedictory to the great art of the German lied, or song, which stretches from before Schubert (who wrote over 1,000 of them) through Schumann and Wolf to Strauss himself. Of the numerous recordings of these exquisite songs, the Ballet has wisely chosen one by the legendary Elisabeth Schwartzkopf with the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester of Berlin. Last in this musically formidable program is a ballet by Choo-San Goh — again about the passage from life to death in the form of the metaphor of day passing into night and poetically entitled In the Glow of the Night. Here the score is three movements of the Symphony No. 1 of Martinu, the Czech master who grew up in the nurturing environs of Prague in its musical golden age and ended his days in America in 1959. The number to call for tickets is 584-7777 (student rush tickets are available 20 minutes before the curtain for an affordable $10).
Wizard and Wizardress
Modesty should prevent my mentioning a concert by the Louisville Youth Choir at the Cathedral of the Assumption on March 4 at 8 p.m., given that the gifted and obviously discriminating conductor Don Scott Carpenter has invited me to write a script on the lives of the "Young Mozarts," linking it with an eclectic selection of Wolfgang’s amazing youthful output. The occasion is the 250th anniversary of the birth in 1756 of the Wizard of Salzburg, an event that has the international music community in a tizzy. The title "Young Mozarts" (plural) refers to the fact that Wolfgang had an older sister Nannerl who was a gifted prodigy and the apple of the eye of papa Leopold Mozart until his attention turned to her more gifted younger brother. Tickets are $13.50 and $9.50 (seniors and students) from 585-1358 or at the door.
Construction Site
On a recent visit to the Chapman Friedman Gallery (624 W. Main St.) I encountered some wonderful pieces — not paintings and not conventional sculptures, more like those maquettes, or models, that stage designers make for new productions. Made in part of "found objects" and in part from meticulously crafted artwork in wood and other media, they seem to celebrate the infinite variety of the raw materials fashioned into objects of precise and ordered beauty. So I was happy to note that the gallery now will have an exhibition of Michael Ransdell’s multimedia "constructions," which opens the night of the next downtown Gallery Hop, Friday, March 3, and runs through April 15. There will be a Gallery Hop reception from 5 to 9 on opening night. You can get a sampling of this artist’s special qualities from one of the most elegant Web sites I have encountered, www.michaelransdell.com. I’m told that the new exhibition will be a departure for Ransdell. All the more reason to check it out.
Final Thought
Oscar season is an appropriate time to express on behalf of movie-lovers our gratitude to Pastor Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, whose thundering denunciation of Brokeback Mountain (sight unseen) guaranteed that the movie would be a "must-see" for movie buffs and suburban housewives alike. Having initially failed to gain admission to a full theater, I was compelled to spill over, as were hundreds of others, to lesser fare — so the good pastor’s inverse advocacy benefited also such morally challenged fare as Memoirs of a Geisha and Casanova. The Lord works in a mysterious way.
— Thomson Smillie
