theCLog

The 80th anniversary season of Carolinas Concert Association began with some radical changes. Founded during the Great Depression, CCA seemed destined for awhile to succumb to the Great Recession. Rebranded as Charlotte Concerts and transported to the cozier confines of Halton Theater, the born-again series resurfaced on October 23 with the Perlman/Schmidt/Bailey Piano Trio.

Perlman/Schmidt/Baily Piano Trio – Left to right: Giora Schmidt, Navah Perlman, Zuill Bailey

Comprised of pianist Navah Perlman (yes, Itzhak’s daughter), violinist Giora Schmidt, and cellist Zuill Bailey, the group warmed up with Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 6 in E-flat, written after the Pastoral Symphony No. 6, when the composer’s reputation and fame – if not his considerable artistic powers – were still on the ascent. It’s a surprisingly sunny and straightforward piece, without some of the feints and misdirection we see elsewhere in Beethoven, but the group’s chemistry didn’t mesh ideally with the hall.

Too much resonance haunted the treble, yet Perlman was disinclined to ease off on the pedals of the Yamaha, smudging the outer allegro movements. Schmidt could have helped more, but he sounded diffident in the opening movement and ignored his chances to assert himself in the ensuing allegretto. The third movement displayed Schmidt’s lyrical side to far better advantage, winking here and there with a scherzo charm and swaying with a lovely 3/4 lilt. His final affirmations in the closing allegro had all the sizzle that had been missing earlier.

Zuill Bailey had a better sound going for him at Halton than when I heard him back in August, playing the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Simone Dinnerstein at (le) poisson rouge in New York. Halton flattered all of the cello – even when Bailey was in the background plucking pizzicatos. He was most assertive in the outer movements, particularly virtuosic in the finale. (more…)

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If you’re a regular theatergoer in Charlotte, chances are that you received more than a handful of playbills from Nathan Frenkel. I’ve seen him and his wife, photographer Marilyn Frenkel, at Theatre Charlotte, Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, and Carolina Actors Studio Theatre on innumerable opening nights. Just before Rosh Hashana, I saw the Frenkels among a sparse crowd at an open North Carolina Dance Theatre rehearsal at Belk Theater. More recently, we had exchanged greetings at the
Just Do It season opener at Theatre Charlotte on Oct. 16.

Nathan Frenkel

So it was quite a shock to learn that Nathan Frenkel had died at Carolinas Medical Center on Oct. 22. Nate was beloved throughout the Charlotte theater community, and a memorial will be held at Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte, 650 E. Stonewall St., at 3 p.m. this Sunday. Marilyn Frenkel has asked that any donations be made to local theaters.

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Before Sunday, I had seen exactly three Greek tragedies during my years of covering theatre for the Loaf – two of them, Medea and The Bacchae, in New York. So it was with great relish that I went down to the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral on East Boulevard to see a third Euripides gem, The Trojan Women.

Some major problems plagued the Leonidas Loizides Theatrical Schema presentation. Apparently, the troupe and their baggage took different flights, and the flight of the players was severely delayed. We could see a lot of onstage pacing back and forth beneath the curtain before the play began. Then after the curtains parted and the situation was explained by Holy Trinity Greek School principal Larry Peroulas, a couple of other issues emerged.

As Paola Hadjilambri came forward to favor the audience with an introduction, there was no good light for her to stand in at the lip of the auditorium stage – and no lighting crew to provide it. Intelligibility was on a par with visibility as the speaker’s accent confirmed her authentic Greek lineage. Not the most encouraging harbinger, since Hadjilambri would be portraying the protagonist in Euripides’ anti-war masterwork, the great Queen Hecuba.

Mostly, the technical problems and the language barriers mattered very little. Hadjilambri may still be working at her English, but she is a superlative actress. Nothing less will do if Hecuba is to remain compelling while bewailing her multitudinous woes in the aftermath of the Trojan War. It’s no mean feat to retain your regal dignity after losing your husband, your sons, and swallowing the prospect of exile and slavery for yourself and your surviving daughters. She will be the humiliating spoils of Odysseus, mastermind of that accursed Trojan Horse! All of these massive sorrows are freshened during the action as news reaches her that her daughter is to be sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, a mere preamble to the coup de grace when her grandson, Astyanax, is ripped out of her arms and tossed off Troy’s famed battlements.

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It was 2000 years after Euripides wrote The Trojan Women when Shakespeare probably connected with Hecuba and her sorrows. We don’t know exactly how or when the Bard first encountered the Greek tragedy, but the impression lasted until he wrote Hamlet, where Hecuba is invoked as the gold standard of stage characters who draw forth an actor’s tears and command our empathy.

My first taste of The Trojan Women was in my freshman year, and it changed me – and how I wrote – forever. Or at least it did until I reached my first poetry writing course, when my prof gently hinted that I needed to turn down the emotional volume a little.

Bottom line, Trojan Women (or Troades) is still hot stuff, and it’s coming to Charlotte this Sunday at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 600 East Boulevard, site of the Yiasou Greek Festival. Hosted by the Holy Trinity Greek School, presentation of the Michalis Kakogiannis translation, directed by Leonidas Loizides, begins at 6:30pm.

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Duke Ernsberger, the man of a thousand teeth, was onstage last weekend – cutting up in a costume designed by Bob Croghan. Fred Story was supplying sound, Ron Chisholm was choreographing, and Charlotte’s prince of gels, Eric Winkenwerder, was on board as lighting designer. Bringing them all together was yet another local luminary, director Steve Umberger, founder of Charlotte Rep.

So was this a special Rep reunion? Nope, but NC Shakespeare Festival’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the closest thing to a locally produced Actor’s Equity theater event we’ve had in Charlotte this year.

Karl Baumann as Puck in NCSF production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; Photo by Tom Terrell

It was also the latest incarnation of the Dream concept birthed at Theatre Charlotte in March 2003 and lovingly transported to High Point for an NCSF production that same September. All of those Umberger Dream’s– and one or two in between – have featured the same lynchpin, Cirque du Soleil performer Karl Baumann and the acrobatic dimension he brings to Puck. (more…)

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Zuill Bailey and Simone Dinnerstein play the Beethoven cello sonata at Le Poisson Rouge.

OK, so my musical follow-up to last week’s review of the New York theater has been backed up to next week. But as the new musical season revs up at Charlotte Symphony, there are a few programming ideas I can pass along, gleaned from my three-week sojourn in the Big Apple.

Think outside the box, the concert hall, the bandshell, and the church. Charlotte classical music presenters use the same venues over and over. Would it be a crime to program a chamber-sized classical group at the Double Door, the Evening Muse, or the Visulite? Up in New York, members of the Music Critics Association were introduced to Ronen Givoney, who founded Le Poisson Rouge at the former site of Village Gate jazz club in Greenwich Village. Among a lineup of progressive rock and pop – Naughty by Nature, Glenn Branca Ensemble, and Deerhoof in a typical week – Givoney programs hard-core classical. So one evening during my stay, my daughter Ilana and attended a CD launch by Simone Dinnerstein and Zuill Bailey, capped by a concert of Beethoven cello sonatas. We weren’t alone. In fact, we learned the hard way that, despite audible clinking beer glasses and visible waiters, classical acts at Le Poisson Rouge routinely draw SRO crowds.

Keep your superstars busy, and keep music lovers happy. While John Adams was leading the New York premiere of his new opera, The Flowering Tree, he was also rehearsing with the International Contemporary Ensemble and clarinetist Michael Collins for a concert of his instrumental music. The outstanding chorale who were the musical centerpiece for The Flowering Tree at the Rose Theater in Columbus Circle, Schola Cantorum de Venezuela, stayed over an extra day to give a superb concert at the new Alice Tully Hall.

Rather grandiose examples, I know. More practical is the utilization by the Mostly Mozart Festival of the big-name concert soloists who came in and collaborated with various large orchestras. Before Yevgeny Sudbin made his New York debut playing a Beethoven concerto with the Festival Orchestra, I heard the first notes he actually played to the New York public – at a brief 7pm pre-concert piano recital an hour before the orchestra took the stage. Think how much more we would have savored appearances by Stephen Hough, Ingrid Fliter, Andre Watts, and a host of other great artists if they had graced the Belk Theater for a precious 20-30 minutes more. These solo pre-concerts were free to ticketholders for the orchestral concerts that followed – with open seating.

Mostly Mozart also back-loaded their orchestral concerts with a series of ticketed post-concert events, aptly named A Little Night Music. After their individual 8pm guest appearances at Avery Fischer Hall, pianists Piotr Anderszewski, Nicholas Angelich, and Stefan Vladar adjourned to the nearby Stanley Kaplan Penthouse for solo recitals at 10:30pm.

No reason why Charlotte Symphony, in concert with the Blumenthal PAC or some of the Queen City’s chamber music organizations, couldn’t contrive to roll out a longer red carpet to visiting classical music royalty. It would be a win-win-win for the solo artists, our orchestra musicians, and Charlotte’s classical music supporters.

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With less than a week remaining before their final deadline for submitting a revised financial restructuring plan that will satisfy the Char-Meck Arts & Science Council, executive director Jonathan Martin and former guv James G. Martin are taking it to the streets today with a 12 p.m. rally for the embattled Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. The “Stand Up for Your Symphony” Rally on The Square will feature a speech from the former governor, newly elected to the chairmanship of CSO’s board, and performances by Symphony musicians.

A rally, in the old-fashioned baseball sense of the word, may be exactly what is needed to save Symphony from strangulation by the ASC and its practitioners of cultural cluelessness. By punishing Symphony with censure this past spring and threatening to cut off funding, the ASC expected Charlotte’s largest contingent of performing artists to increase their attractiveness to prospective donors and subscribers?

Of course, a rally in the deathbed sense of the word will be necessary if the ASC persists in its practice of euthanizing local arts groups. The beancounters who have sat in judgment in the lordly Carillon Building, decreeing how proceeds of the Queen City’s annual fund drive should be misdirected, have allowed a string of local companies to perish over the past 16 years. Unless there is a sudden transfusion of funding, the ailing Charlotte Symphony will join a deathly parade that includes Charlotte Shakespeare Company, Charlotte Repertory Theatre, and Charlotte Philharmonic Orchestra – all killed in part by the ASC’s malign neglect.

Maybe the Martins need to announce a name change for the Charlotte Symphony. “Pittsburgh” might offer better prospects. “Bank of America Orchestra” has a nice coppery ring.

Executive director Jonathan Martin is promising “exciting news of our progress so far” at the rally. So please be present at Trade and Tryon for your lunch hour, enjoy the music, act appropriately excited by the speeches and announcements, and if CSO staffers or musicians pass the hat, kindly drop in some negotiable currency.

You can be sure that cash will be spent on sustaining the Charlotte Symphony. Unfortunately, no such assurances have come from the idiots at the ASC.

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Late last month, the Big O (The Charlotte Observer) published a big putdown of Charlotte audiences who unconscionably give everything that plays at Belk Theater a standing ovation. The broad implications were that Belk audiences were unique and that Charlotte’s indiscriminate standing O’s exposed our pitiful provinciality to ridicule. Well, here’s my answer to Larry Toppman and his “Sit down!” vitriol: you need to get out more.

In the Heights

Up here in New York, we’ve seen a half dozen shows, on Broadway and off. Whether we went to In the Heights, still boasting robust audiences after a year-and-a-half; the ragtag Toxic Avenger: The Musical over on the west side; or 9 to 5: The Musical, expiring ignominiously after a run of less than five months; the story was the same. Every night, you could count on a standing O. It made no difference that the critics had lambasted 9 to 5 – and no difference that an understudy had taken over the lead at In the Heights.

So relax, Charlotte. You’re no more ignorant or provincial as a theater audience than the theatergoers in the Big Apple. We can’t say that about Toppman – unless we cut him some slack.

Now, I do agree with Toppman that indiscriminate standing ovations cheapen the value of the gesture. Ticket prices for Broadway theater do enter into the equation. If you’re paying $121.50 for prime seats, you’re expecting something special. And there are dozens of people onstage, backstage, in the light booth, or potting sound who are busting tail to make sure it all lives up to those pricey expectations.

But the idea that performers are somehow offended by a lukewarm ovation is naïve. I could go into a long disquisition on how current Broadway and touring shows are choreographed to ensure a standing O, but I’ll cite one example:

At the end of Hair, railings are rigged alongside steps leading up to the stage, and audience members are invited to join the cast onstage. You tell me how the severest critic alive is supposed to remain seated in his aisle seat during such a jubilant bacchanal.

So go ahead and ignore the curmudgeonly fulminations of Grandpa Toppman. Meanwhile, I’ll deliver my critiques of current Broadway and off-Broadway shows in coming weeks – plus some dips into the FringeNYC festival.

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Actor/director/mentor Kevin Campbell didn’t encounter too much difficulty getting a dozen or so teens to open up and jot down their visions of Charlotte in 2015. The trick in The Crossroads Teen Theater Project was getting all those restless, roaming, talented teens together in the same room to rehearse and perform their fascinating collaboration.

I caught the show back in June when it capped off the week long Once Upon on a Festival at Theatre Charlotte. Having slipped away for August in New York, I can still heartily recommend the final Crossroads reprise this Saturday at 2 p.m. The event is free and open to the public at Theatre Charlotte. So when I return in September, I want to hear that Crossroads bowed out to a full house.

Campbell reassures me that, although the Crossroads Project is complete, it isn’t forgotten. He’ll be showing a DVD of the show at local high schools in the near future.

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The strange, stately beauties of pianist/composer Laurence Hobgood’s new Naim Jazz release, When the Heart Dances (US release date: Aug. 11, 2009), begin on the opening track with his funereal transformation of “Que Sera, Sera,” the Jay Livingston tune that Doris Day waltzed to the top of the pop charts in 1956. We lose the carefree tang of Ray Evans’ lyric as Hobgood and the great bassist Charlie Haden lift its fatality into saddened serenity, with a farewell of aching poignancy.

A native of Salisbury, NC, Hobgood is best known for his collaborations with singer Kurt Elling, who drops in on the Hobgood/Haden duo for three songs. Of these, only “Stairway to the Stars” will be familiar – and, especially in its soaring conclusion, worthy of comparison with the great Johnny Hartman version. Duke Ellington’s seldom-heard “Daydream” fits in equally well with the meditative profundity of this CD, but it is overshadowed by the Haden composition, “First Song,” graced by an opening lyric that blooms with quiet cosmic power:
When the stars were strung –
It was the first song that was sung.
It lightened up a world
Made for a boy and a girl
When love was new as morning dew.

That’s Abbey Lincoln’s lyric, uncredited here. It’s safe to predict that you’ll hear more versions of this song, properly credited, after other singers hear this one. Haden’s full-strength instrumental lyricism shines everywhere, particularly brightly on “Que Sera,” “First Song,” and “Why Did I Choose You?” – all compelling remedies for listeners who abominate bass solos. Only for a moment or two in “Chickoree,” jointly composed by Haden and Hobgood, does the bassist’s solo sink into the slough of self-indulgence that enmeshes most improvs on the supersized fiddle. But wait, he’s setting us up for a welcome speed-up at the end, sprinkled with hints of the “Tennessee Waltz” from the keyboard.

Interspersed with the vocals and six duo tracks are two Hobgood solos. If pressed to apply a label to Hobgood’s highly original stylings, I’d call “Sanctuary” a gospel blues that evokes Keith Jarrett when he settles into that groove, while “Leatherwood” is more in the vein of Chick Corea’s acoustic work. Hobgood’s highly personal idea of dancing is perhaps clearest in his title tune, restoring the waltz tempo he dropped from the preceding “Que Sera” and, together with a gently swinging Haden, conjuring up the legendary interplay between Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro.

“Chickoree” has that same “When the Heart Dances” rightness when Hobgood steps on the accelerator, but it’s the closing offering, Don Grolnick’s “The Cost of Living,” that comes closest to the mesmerizing majesty of “Que Sera.” It’s a dark passionate tango, so deeply intense in its intimacy that one can easily imagine two dancers in the middle of the floor, frozen in mutual attraction and fascination, as the music plays on.

The actual recording location, the Roy O. Disney Music Hall in Valencia, has already received a shower of accolades from critics and concertgoers. Hosting the instrumentalists under chaste studio conditions, the Disney proves to be a wondrous silent contributor to this dance.

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