Masters and Lords
January should be proclaimed “Louisville Orchestra Month,” as the newly burnished LO pours forth two unashamedly crowd-delighting events. I am all for high art (within reason), but sometimes it is glorious to immerse oneself in a program just for the thrill of it. Daniel Hege conducts such an offering at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13, starting with Beethoven’s rousing Egmont overture, as dazzling a piece of orchestral showmanship as the world offers, followed by the very melodic Second Symphony. The all-Beethoven concert ends with the Emperor Concerto — or, more formally, Piano Concerto # 5 in E flat major. Someone — though not you or me — is going to say “not again,” but just when did you last hear this titan of the concerto repertoire live and thrill to the thunderous opening, the glittering first subject, the exquisitely melodic slow movement and the fire and virtuosic brilliance of the final movement, all reminding us that Beethoven started his career as a concert virtuoso. Heady stuff.
On Friday, Jan. 19, more creative, less conventional program planning gives us a glimpse of what may be the future of concert music. The orchestra plays Howard Shore’s film score The Lord of the Rings — a Symphony in Six Parts, with the added visual enticement of projections of the stunning designs for a trilogy of movies that has revealed Tolkein’s literary masterpiece to new generations. Of course some of us — yes, me and perhaps you — think Tolkein’s work is a massive rip-off of Wagner’s Ring cycle, with heroes, dwarves, dragons, a magic ring, a towering struggle between good and evil and so on, so it’s not inappropriate that Shore’s music should be scored for Wagnerian forces: More than 200 performers will crowd the Whitney stage. The concert is a big undertaking involving huge orchestral resources and the massed choirs of the University of Louisville Collegiate Chorale, Choral Arts Society and St. Francis in the Fields Treble Choir, plus members of Voces Novae and the Noe Middle School Chorus. Not surprisingly, the costs and risk are shared by joint promoters: the orchestra and the Kentucky Center. For tickets call 584-7777.
Caught in the Net
The time is right to call and book for the last opera of Kentucky Opera’s season, coming up Feb. 2 and 4 at the Whitney. It is Les Pecheurs de Perles (The Pearlfishers), often and dispiritingly nicknamed “Bizet’s Other Opera” because it is perceived as lacking the fire, passion and blazing energy of his better-known Carmen. But then so does every other opera ever written, so better to concentrate on what Pearlfishers is rather than what it isn’t. A love story set in distant Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then called, it tells of two men enamored with the same sultry temple priestess. The exotic setting reflects a mid-19th-century fascination with the East. It offered Bizet opportunities for some very sensual music, wonderful harmonies and only occasional kootchy-koo nonsense. The soprano has one very good aria, but it is the duet for tenor and baritone that has often proved to be a literal showstopper. This is called “Au Fond du Temple Saint” and is included on every list and on any decent CD compilation of the greatest tenor/baritone duets ever written. The melody is exquisite, and when the two men repeat the refrain singing in thirds the effect is spine-tingling. Vaut le voyage (“worth a journey”) as the Michelin guide says.
The singing should soar with the popular and acclaimed William Joyner (last heard locally in Thais) partnered for the duet with company debutant Stephen Powell. They and the soprano Barbara Shirvis and bass Stephen Morshek, who complete the small cast, all come trailing clouds of New York glory. The conductor is the very experienced Scott Bergeron and the stage director a young Canadian, Joshua Major, who, if he is half as good as a compatriot who directed last fall’s La Boheme, will deliver a hit. Audiences love this opera. Critics hate it, so if you are paying for your own ticket, sit back and wallow in a very enjoyable piece of kitsch. Tickets through the Kentucky Center, 584-7777.
Final Thought
I have a special passion for public art because it affects us all, and into that category fall billboards, graffiti walls and ad-wrapped buses. So we have to ask, can’t something be done to spare us the beaming omnipresence of one particular self-promoting ambulance chaser? The back cover of the telephone directory, a city TARC bus, numerous television commercials and now a huge billboard looming over River Road, formerly one of the most attractive city approaches, all proclaim his vanity. It seems absurd that damage attorneys should advertise their macabre services on such a lavish scale. Where are the guardians of America the Beautiful when we need them?
