Leonard Turnevicius

Boito's Mefistofele & Marita Viitasalo and Soile Isokoski

Photos by Leonard Turnevicius, jamilton.ca: The leads and chorus in Boito's Mefistofele at the Savonlinna Opera Festival; Marita Viitasalo and Soile Isokoski in the Savonlinnasali.

(Savonlinna, Finland) What a difference a day makes.

Gone are the paparazzi snapping photos of patrons entering the Olavinlinna Castle.

Gone too, are the seasonal temperatures. Opera fans came dressed for autumn. Some wrapped themselves in their own blankets while festival attendants handed out red blankets to others.

And there were other ways to keep warm on this cold night. A Russian gentleman from a St. Petersburg motorcycle club warmed himself by taking a swig from his pocket flask.

And all for Boito’s Mefistofele.

In spite of it being a remount from last year’s festival, it’s not an opera that’s done all that frequently. The reasons are clear. It has little or no dramatic coherence, and outside of a few exciting chorus numbers and Margherita’s Act 3 aria, and duet with Faust, its music is more miss than hit.

So too, was Dieter Kaegi’s stage direction. He decided to set this Mefistofele in a kind of Kit-Kat yacht club, with William Orlandi’s set including a cabaret stage placed centre stage flanked by tables and seating areas from which the chorus and sometimes Faust and Mefistofele watched scenes from Faust (the opera) play out. That’s all fine, especially when it came to Margherita’s prison scene in Act 3, and the Helen of Troy and Pantalis business in Act 4.

But Kaegi’s hoped for coherence was blurred in his treatment of the Epilogue, when the chorus, who’d been a mass of onlookers in tuxes and black formal dress, suddenly found itself on the cabaret stage in the role of participant.

The opening prologue suffered, too. The chorus sang from behind a huge blue, billowing curtain, with the shapes of a few choristers’ bodies protruding through. That effect was made all the weaker when Kaegi repeated the same business near the prologue’s end.

What was enjoyable were the solid performances by the principals led by the Mefistofele of Carlo Colombaro, the Faust of Sergei Semishkur, the Margherita of Daria Masiero (the lone holdover from last year’s leads), the Wagner of Petri Bäckström, and the floozy Martha of Edyta Kulczak.

Once again, Matti Hyökki’s chorus was superb.

Phillipe Auguin conducted in the pit with a steady hand.

There was seven minutes of applause from the audience and much foot stomping. (That doesn’t mean they were trying to warm themselves, but that they enjoyed the opera.)

Even more enjoyable was Soile Isokoski’s sold-out afternoon recital at the Savonlinnasali.

Her program included Schumann’s Liederkreis op. 39, and after the interval, four songs by Finnish composer Toivo Kuula, and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder.

All was filled with sensitively shaded singing, delicacy and strength where and when required, though there were rare instances of incorrectly shaped German vowels (the ‘e’ in “lange”, and “Herze”).

Isokoski and her accompanist, Marita Viitasalo, also gave two encores, one a Finnish miniature, before ending with Strauss’s Ich trage meine Minne.

Savonlinna Opera Festival: Madama Butterfly flutters to new heights

Photo: Leonard Turnevicius, jamilton.ca: The principals and some of the chorus and supers in Madama Butterfly at the Savonlinna Opera Festival.

(Savonlinna, Finland) It was opening night at the 2009 Savonlinna Opera Festival. And judging by the paparazzi and star-gazers who’d assembled on Tallisaari Island, many of Finland’s beautiful people were here, passing by, crossing over the bridge to Olavinlinna, and to the centuries old castle where the operas are staged.

But not only were there Finns. You could hear (American) English, German, Danish, Swedish, and Spanish, too.

And they all poured into Olavinlinna Castle, walking over the rugged cobblestones of the Water Gate Bastion, past the Small Courtyard, and the King’s Hall, into the tarpaulin covered Great Courtyard.

Here, the narrow stage and orchestra pit are hulked over by one of the castle’s huge walls atop which were hung lights and a surtitle screen which translated the opera’s libretto into Finnish and English.

And what better opera to open the festival than Puccini’s ever-popular tearjerker, Madama Butterfly.

Briefly, it takes place in 1900 in Nagasaki, Japan, where an American naval Lieutenant named Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton contracts to marry a 15 year old geisha, Cio-Cio-San, nicknamed Butterfly. Cio-Cio-San’s family disowns her for renouncing their ancestral religion, and her “husband” leaves for the States. Three years later, Pinkerton returns, only this time with his new American wife to fetch the son born to Butterfly. Anguished by the entire situation, she commits hari-kari.

Savonlinna’s Butterfly was sung convincingly by Viktoria Yastrebova from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. While she passed on the optional high D-flat in Act 1, opting instead for the written B-Flat, the opera’s big aria, Un bel dì, was beautifully sung. What was missing in Yastrebova’s otherwise fine performance was any hint of Oriental bearing or gestures that would lead one to believe that Butterfly is, in fact, Japanese. True, Anne Namba’s costumes were every stitch Japanese or American as the case warranted. And the Japanese haikus which were projected onto a screen on the huge backdrop (read: castle wall) added to the production’s value.

And set designer Dean Shibuya took that huge castle wall, its staircase and walkway into consideration, and then placed two mini-stages of differing height on the stage proper.

The twenty supers, who dressed in black from head to toe (only their eyes could be seen), were effectively used in the production. They assembled some of the shoji doors in Shibuya’s set. They carried Japanese lanterns. And at the end, they became the angels of death in the suicide scene.

It seems directors everywhere are downplaying Pinkerton’s callousness. And Henry Akina is no exception to this. He had Adam Diegel sing Pinkerton’s aria Addio fiorito asil while down on his knees.

Jordanka Milkova was a slightly heavy voiced Suzuki, a servant in Pinkerton's leased home. She earned her keep during the night watch scene when she had to constantly still the fidgety youngster playing Butterfly’s son (uncredited in the program booklet) by placing her hand on his shoulder, or on his leg as they lay on stage.

Daniel Sutin’s voice suited the role of Sharpless, the American consul, quite well.

Under Akina’s direction, Dan Karlström’s Goro bowed only once at the opening, even though the descending leaps in Puccini’s music suggest frequent bowing.

Mikhail Kolelishvili wasn’t a totally fearsome Bonze, but one who sounded sufficiently blustery.

Tiina-Maija Koskela was a slightly husky voiced Kate Pinkerton.

Matti Hyökki’s Savonlinna Opera Festival Choir was quite strong and impressive.

Ilkka Paloniemi’s lighting highlighted changes in mood and time. And Paloniemi followed Puccini’s wish of having a white light beam at Cio-Cio-San’s young son during his climactic appearance.

Akina’s dream sequence at the beginning of Act 3 was highly effective, but had to compete for the attention of many in the audience who witnessed paramedics dealing with an ill patron in row 7 or 8. Akina also connected Act 2 and 3. But with no curtain to speak of in the Great Courtyard, that was a no-brainer.

Stefan Soltesz led the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra in this well paced account.

For the record, there was ten minutes of audience applause at the end, during which time women in Finnish national dress presented flowers and birch branches to the cast members.

Tomorrow’s double-header in Savonlinna includes a recital by Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski, and Boito’s Mefistofele.

Mikkeli Festival: All you need is a...toothpick?!

photos by leonard turnevicius, jamilton.ca
cutlines, from top:
-Miroslav Kultishev and Sergei Roldugin
-The Mariinsky Orchestra with Gergiev flanked on either side by two soloists.
-Yuri Bashmet and Valery Gergiev
-Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra accept applause for Sibelius's Fifth Symphony

With the Mariinsky Theatre coming up on the short end of a 2-1 loss in yesterday's soccer match against the Mikkeli Festival (sponsors and press), the Russians were out to prove that they're better on stage than they are on the playing field.

And so, it was a double-header at the Mikkeli Festival this evening, the first concert starting at 5 p.m. in Martti Talvela Hall

Well, actually 5:05 p.m. (Mrs. Gergiev and the kids needed to get seated.)

Up first, was a mini-recital by cellist Sergei Roldugin, and pianist Miroslav Kultishev.

The Latvian born Roldugin was educated in Leningrad, and joined that city's Philharmonic Orchestra while still a student at the Conservatory. In 1984, he became principal cellist of the Kirov Orchestra (synonymous with today's Mariinsky Orchestra). Eight years later, he was appointed rector of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. During the 2004-05 season, Gergiev let him wield a baton in the pit of the Mariinsky for performances of Le Nozze di Figaro, and The Nutcracker. What program booklet bios neglect to mention about Roldugin is that he is the godfather of one of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's daughters.

The St. Petersburg born Kultishev was the silver medalist in the 2007 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition (no gold medal was awarded that year.)

The first selection on their program was Brahms's Second Cello Sonata op. 99. The major problem with this work is that the piano part far outweighs the cello part. Consequently, the cello is often drowned out by Brahms's thick keyboard texture. Indeed, this has been the case since Brahms's day. There is a well known anecdote in which a female cellist played through the work then complained to Brahms that she couldn't hear herself, to which Brahms caustically retorted, "You were lucky."

Roldugin encountered the same problem. he was often covered by Kultishev's playing. But Roldugin also had some issues intonation issues. The final note of the third movement being but one ear-twisting example.

Balance wise, things improved in their second piece, Shostakovich's Cello Sonata op. 40 which was rendered with the requisite passion, impishness, and verve.

Both musicians gave encores, first together, then Kultishev alone in a work by Franz Liszt.

After intermission, Gergiev and a chamber-sized, twenty-eight piece Mariinsky Orchestra came on with four soloists (an oboist, clarinetist, bassoonist, and French horn player, none of whom were identified in the program) to perform the Sinfonia concertante KV 297b attributed to Mozart.

Whether you're in the camp that says this is a work by Mozart, or if you're in the camp that says this piece is by someone else (Robert Levin argues that it was assembled in Paris in the 1820s-30s by an unknown clarinetist), the reading by Gergiev and company was warm, and long-breathed. The strings often played legatissimo, and their tone production was often more suitable for a work by, say, Schumann.

The second concert of the double bill was in memory of Finnish bass Martti Talvela who passed away twenty years ago. (The concert was to have begun at 8 p.m., but Gergiev was still rehearsing the orchestra behind closed doors until 8 p.m.)

When all were seated, there was a special speech made on stage to Talvela's widow, Annukka.

Following that, Gergiev came on to conduct the Prelude to Act 1 of Wagner's Parisfal. But what was that in the maestro's right hand? A toothpick?

Yes, a toothpick to conduct Wagner's majestic, and awe-inspiring prelude!

And majestic and awe inspiring were the tones that Gergiev drew from the orchestra.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the concert didn't live up to its very promising start.

Yuri Bashmet's performance of Hindemith's Trauermusik (written by the composer in six hours after hearing of the death of England's King George V) was a variable one. It included some unclean shifting, and early on, an unwanted change of colour when Bashmet went from playing on the D string to the A string.

Bashmet's variable play continued in the Bartok-Serly Viola Concerto which closed the first half. There were some beautiful notes to be sure, but there was also some scratchiness on the uppermost repeated notes of arpeggios in the first movement.

Not all of Serly's tempo markings were followed. A prime example was the "Un poco meno mosso" marking at bar 41. (William Primrose must be rolling in his grave.) And, Gergiev, head in the score, actually sped things up twice where no accelerando was marked. Gergiev also appropriated the "Lenny Hop" (a jumping-up-and-down-on-the-podium antic made famous by Leonard Bernstein) to effect the tempo change into the third movement. Sure, it's humorous, but it did the job.

The second half got off to a late start. During the lengthy intermission (over half an hour), Gergiev had gone outside for a walk, score in one hand, cell phone in another, only to disappear in the back seat of a black car that had pulled up to him then remained stationary on the parking lot.

There was nothing humorous in Sibelius's Fifth Symphony, unless of course, you've got your eyes on that toothpick which somehow disappeared in the second movement, but reappeared mysteriously in the middle of the last movement.

Gergiev's reading of Sibelius's Fifth was done with animal instincts. Unfortunately,so many of Sibelius's dynamic markings were blatantly ignored to the detriment of the performance.

And will someone show these Russians how to turn pages quietly. During the quietest passages of the final movement, the Mariinsky Orchestra's violin section constantly turned their pages so loudly as to ruin the music. (But then again, maybe this was their message to the maestro? If so, he didn't even bat an eye.)

It's frightening to think what kind of monster orchestra this could be if Gergiev would A) prepare himself properly for concerts,and B) prepare his orchestra properly.

At 10:27 p.m., with six grunts from Gergiev, one for each of the final chords of the symphony, it was all over except for the applause.

And there was warm applause for about 5 minutes, Gergiev making several curtain calls. Only two Finns stood to applaud. The rest in the sold out hall remained seated until the house lights went up.

The Mikkeli Festival concludes tomorrow night with Gergiev (who's of Ossetian heritage), conducting his long-time friend, pianist Alexander Toradze (who was born in Tblisi, Georgia) in Stravinsky's Capriccio, and Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto. That should be quite the match up. However, tomorrow is also opening night for the 2009 Savonlinna Opera Festival. Stay tuned.

Mikkeli Music Festival: Two Finnish treats

But with Mikkeli Festival artistic director Valery Gergiev and his Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg, Russia resting after a late morning soccer match versus the press and sponsors, the festival’s stages were turned over to the Finns.

This afternoon, up and coming Finnish lyric tenor Toumas Katajala and organist Matti-Veikko Kuusi were in recital at the Mikkeli Cathedral.

Briefly, Katajala has already sung at the Savonlinna Opera Festival (2006), the Finnish National Opera, as well as houses in France and Luxembourg, and the Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro, Italy. As for Kuusi, he's been the cantor at the Mikkeli Cathedral for three decades, and has also taught music and been a music critic.

The recital was made up of well known works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Mendelssohn. The best of them was Haydn’s Vidit suum dulcem natum from the Stabat mater, and Er zaehlt unsere Traenen in der Zeit der Not from Mendelssohn’s ‘Lobegesang’ Symphony.

Often Katajala’s rapid vibrato and the cathedral’s rather ample resonance made for uneasy partners. As well, there were the odd times when Katajala resorted to shouting out high notes.

The organ is hardly the instrument that comes to mind as the ideal partner for Mozart's arias Un’aura amorosa, and Il mio tesoro. Indeed, in the latter Kuusi messed up the introduction, and was forced to start over.

Kuusi’s solos, which punctuated Katajala’s program, were stolid renditions of Bach’s Ein feste Burg (BWV 720), Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam (BWV 685, not BWV 684 which was stated in the program, and which, by the way, is the far more interesting setting of this baptismal hymn tune), An Wasserfluessen Babylon BWV 653, and to top off the program, the Prelude and Fugue in C Major BWV 547.

The highlight of the afternoon was the encore, the Domine Deus from Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle. The work is neither small, nor solemn. And that was effectively demonstrated by Katajala and Kuusi.

At 7 p.m., in the Martti Talvela Hall, sixteen year old Finnish piano prodigy Johannes Piirto performed Busoni’s Concerto for piano and string orchestra op. 17 with the Mikkeli String Orchestra under the baton of Gavriel Heine.

Piirto’s gangly appearance belies his playing which is poised and fluid, never showy. However, Busoni’s piece of juvenilia can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be Mozart, Beethoven, or Mendelssohn. And the harmonic language in the cadenza sounds as though from still a later age.

The New Jersey born Heine trained in Moscow, St. Petersburg, as well as Indiana University. He is presently on staff at the Mariinsky.

In the opening work, Fuchs’s Andante grazioso and Capriccio, Heine was constantly moving around in front of the 14 member Mikkeli String Orchestra. That can be a distraction for some musicians who’d rather see the conductor’s gestures in one and the same spot out of the corner of their eyes, not having to constantly adjust their field of vision when the conductor moves several feet to his left or right as though executing some kind of balletic choreography.

Nonetheless, Heine had this municipal ensemble playing their utmost in the Sextet from Strauss’s Capriccio, and the concert closer, Sibelius’s Voces intimae, here arranged for string orchestra.

The latter received very warm and lengthy applause from the half filled auditorium. Obviously, the Finns love their Finnish music.

Tomorrow night, the Russians take over: Gergiev, Roldugin, Kultishev, Bashmet, and the Mariinsky Orchestra.

Madama Butterfly takes flight

What: Madama Butterfly

Who: Opera Hamilton

Where: Hamilton Place

When: Thursday, April 2 and Friday, April 3 at 8 p.m.

Cost: $35, $55, $75, $95

Call: 905-527-7627 ext. 221

Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the pillars in the operatic repertoire.

Its plot, based on a story by John Luther Long and a play by David Belasco, is a tearjerker. Back in 1900 in Nagasaki, Japan, an American naval Lieutenant named Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton contracts to marry a 15 year old geisha, Cio-Cio-San, nicknamed Butterfly. Things turn sour for Butterfly when her family disowns her for renouncing their ancestral religion, and her “husband” leaves her land. Three years later, he returns, but with his new American wife to fetch the son born to Butterfly. Anguished, she commits hari-kari.

Madama Butterfly’s première in Milan in 1904 was a flop, the opera roundly booed by a claque. After several revisions, and a metamorphosis from a pointed social and moral message to a sentimental melodrama, Puccini came up with a winning version for Paris in 1906. Ever since, Madama Butterfly has enjoyed a prolonged life cycle, migrating across the globe, and delighting audiences in the process.

Butterfly’s illustrious flight has taken it to Hamilton Place three times in the past quarter century or so, Opera Hamilton staging it in September 1982, May 1993, and October 2000. Last night, an all ages crowd gathered in Hamilton Place to catch Butterfly, or rather OH’s preview performance thereof.

OH’s Butterfly was sung by Chinese soprano Ailan Zhu. While no one will mistake Zhu for a teen, she nonetheless captured the divisions of her character. Zhu scored big with her stylized hand gestures, and her Oriental bearing, something which Western sopranos in the role rarely capture. She tastefully delivered Butterfly’s aria, Un bel di, earning warm applause from the audience.

Gordon Gietz downplayed the callousness of Pinkerton in favour of respectability. It worked in his favour, making his aria, Addio fiorito asil, all the less maudlin.

Lauren Segal was a honey toned Suzuki, a servant in the home leased by Pinkerton.

As Sharpless, Gaétan Laperrière was a stentorian voiced American consul.

Under Graham Cozzubbo’s direction, Gerald Isaac’s Goro didn’t tiptoe about, nor did he bow profusely as the descending leaps in Puccini’s music so clearly suggest.

Sean Watson was a suitably blustery Bonze, Butterfly’s Buddhist priest uncle.

The OH chorus was alert throughout.

Locals figured in this production as well. Alessandra Crisante-Crespo, the 5 ½ year old Hamiltonian playing the mute role of Butterfly’s 3 year old son, was a delightful little soul, but ought to have worn a blonde wig to match the “golden curls” of which Butterfly sings. As Kate Pinkerton, Sarah Valentim made the most of her tiny role.

Wally Coberg’s set, originally for Virginia Opera, was a simple one: a wooden, Japanese home with sliding shoji, flanked by a slightly raised pathway, all framed by foliage and blossoms. In Act 2, the shoji opened to aptly show Butterfly’s destituteness. Stephen Ross’s lighting effectively defined both time and mood.

Cozzubbo’s decision to dispense with the curtain and intermission between the scenes of Act 2 made for dramatic coherence, and a shorter evening.

Daniel Lipton led the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra with deft assurance, never covering the sung text.

Emotional, but never thin-blooded, this Butterfly was a moving experience. Catch Butterfly this Thursday and Friday in Hamilton Place.

Pinning down Madama Butterfly

What: Madama Butterfly

Who: Opera Hamilton

Where: Hamilton Place

When: Tuesday, March 31 at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 2 and Friday, April 3 at 8 p.m.

Cost: $35, $55, $75, $95. Tuesday only prices: ‘30ish’ and under, $30, $50, $70, elementary school student $10, high school $15, college/university $20, parent/chaperone with student $20.

Call: 905-527-7627 ext. 221

It’s a tearjerker, a tragic tale of innocence betrayed.

Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, an American naval officer leasing a house in Nagasaki, Japan, contracts to marry a 15 year old geisha, Cio-Cio-San, nicknamed Butterfly. But the besotted teen is disowned by her family for renouncing her ancestral religion. What’s worse, the love ‘em and leave ‘em, lascivious Lieutenant leaves the Land of the Rising Sun for the Land of the Free. He returns three years later, remorseful, with his new American wife in tow to fetch the son born to Butterfly. Distraught, Butterfly commits hari-kari.

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the pillars in the operatic repertoire. The musical score, which took four years to compose, is a marvel. There’s Un bel di, the opera’s hit tune, beloved of sopranos the world over. There’s also the burnishing love duet at the end of Act 1, and the charming Humming Chorus in Act 2. And there’s Puccini’s music which masterfully underscores the opera’s emotional arc while delineating each of its characters in the process.

“Every time I open the score, I find little details which I hadn’t found the time before,” said Opera Hamilton’s music director Daniel Lipton who’ll conduct Madama Butterfly in Hamilton Place next Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. When asked to rank Butterfly in Puccini’s canon, Lipton replied, “It’s a wonderful thing about being a conductor, is that you become a Don Giovanni of music because each one is the only one. When I’m conducting Butterfly, it’s the greatest opera in the world."

Butterfly will be sung by Ailan Zhu, who arrived in Hamilton from her home in Beijing, China two Saturdays ago. “I love this opera. It’s one of my favourite roles,” said Zhu. “For me, it’s more close to my personality. The reason I like it very much, I don’t have to act that much. It’s close to my own culture.”

Close, but not the same. “Chinese are different than Japanese,” added Zhu. “I do the little steps they do. The little gestures with the hands are totally different than the Chinese.”

Zhu, who studied at Beijing’s Central Conservatory from 1974 to 1984 before heading off to Connecticut Hartt School, recalls seeing the opera in China’s capital after the Cultural Revolution.

When she began studying the role of Butterfly in Connecticut, she was advised not to perform it until she was 40. “They say this is a very emotional role, not only the size of the vocal thing, but mentally and emotionally is difficult to handle,” explained Zhu. “I didn’t take that role for a quite a long time."

Zhu recalls that she first sang Butterfly about ten years ago. Since then, she’s sung it around 100 times in America and Europe. However, she’s only done it once in China, last year in “The Egg,” Beijing’s recently built mammoth performing arts centre.

It’s no secret that the opera trades on American and Japanese stereotypes. But has Zhu, an Oriental woman, been typecast in the role? “I definitely say no,” responded Zhu emphatically, “because I rejected it for so many years.”

With Hamilton Place booked out next Saturday, Lipton, Zhu and company will have back to back performances over two nights. That’s no easy feat, considering Butterfly’s long sing in Act 2.

“I’ve done that before…in London a couple times,” said Zhu confidently. “But here, I think as long as we don’t push ourself, and just take a little easy, and should be OK as well.”

***

Hamilton's Albert Alexanian was recently appointed to the board of directors of the Ontario Arts Council. A long time arts patron, Alexanian was also past president of Opera (Ontario) Hamilton.

Prazak Quartet: A long tradition of stringing us along

Showtime

Who: Prazak Quartet

When: Friday, March 6 at 8 p.m.

Where: Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts, 126 James St. S.

Cost: $27, senior $22, student $10

Call: 905-528-5628

Few countries have as rich a string quartet ensemble history as does the present day Czech Republic.

From the Bohemian (Czech) String Quartet in 1892 to the Sevcik, Herold, and Ondricek quartets of pre-WWII Czechoslovakia, to post-war groups such as the Smetana, Prague, Talich, and Vlach quartets, Czech string ensembles have long ranked among the finest anywhere.

Standing in that august lineage is the Prazak Quartet. Founded in Prague in the early 1970s, its original line-up was coached by a member from each of the Vlach, Prague, and Smetana quartets.

The Smetanas had a decisive influence on the Prazaks. “They prepared us for competition and professional concert life,” said Prazak founding violist Josef Kluson speaking from his country home in the forest outside of Pardubice in the Czech Republic two weeks ago after returning from a tour to New Zealand.

And the Prazaks were prepared well. After victories in competitions in the C.S.S.R., they took top prize at the 1978 Evian String Quartet Competition in France. Though they turned pro two years later, their coaching sessions didn’t stop.

In the early 1980’s they met LaSalle Quartet founding first violinist Walter Levin who invited them to study with him for several months at the University of Cincinnati.

“We wanted to become more familiar with the Second Viennese School,” said Kluson of the string quartet works by Schönberg, Berg, and von Webern. “In our time when we started, this music has been completely neglected, not only by communists...As young people, we wanted to bring these first quartets to Prague audience(s).”

Tomorrow night, the Prazaks bring von Webern’s Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement) to their concert at the Hamilton Conservatory. As Kluson recalled, Levin hated this work, dismissing it as “not the purest of music.” The nine-minute piece was written in a late-Romantic style in 1905 by von Webern after hiking in Lower Austria’s Waldwinkel with his eventual wife.

With 2009 being the bicentennial of Felix Mendelssohn’s birth, as well as Franz Joseph Haydn’s death, the Prazaks have programmed the former’s op. 12 and the latter’s op. 50 no. 6.

With its croaking theme in the last movement, Haydn’s op. 50 no. 6 has garnered the nickname “The Frog.” Yet, that very theme foreshadows by a century and a quarter the Second Viennese School’s technique of Klangfarbenmelodie, a melody created in part by using successive hues of instrumental colour. Only in Haydn’s case, he explores the colour contrasts between playing on an open string versus the changes of fingering on a string. “It’s how the Austrian frogs are singing,” joked Kluson of Haydn’s technique.

To bring the tone colour of those “Austrian frogs” to the listener’s ears, the Prazaks use a combination of old and modern instruments. The violinists play on a 1730 Guadagnini, and 1690 Albani respectively, while Kluson uses a 1985 Pilar, and the cellist a 2006 Bayon from Lisbon. “We tried many, many instruments,” said Kluson. “This is the best combination we’ve found.”

Chamber Music Hamilton regulars will be delighted to know that Kluson recently met former Prague Quartet cellist and erstwhile CMH artistic director Zdenek Konicek at a concert in Prague. Kluson reported that Konicek, who left Dundas for Prague in 2005, recently turned 90 and is in good health.

A Time to Remember

Showtime

What: Oratorio Terezin

With: Bach Elgar Choir, Hamilton Children’s Choir, Talisker Players, soloists

When: Saturday, February 28 at 8 p.m.

Where: Hamilton Place

Cost: $29 - $49; senior $24 - $44; student $10; child $5

Call: 905-527-5995 or 905-527-7666

...We've suffered here more than enough, here in this clot of grief and shame,wanting a badge of blindness to be a proof for their own children... And the cannons don't scream and the guns don't bark, and you don't see blood. The heaviest wheel rolls across our foreheads to bury itself deep somewhere inside our memories...

These words are from the poem Terezin written in 1944 by a Jewish youth identified only as 'Mif.' They poignantly tell of a harrowing existence in desperate conditions in the Terezin concentration camp in the German occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

During WWII, Terezin was in effect much like a staging post as transport after transport took children such as 'Mif' along with many adult Jews to the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of the approximately 15,000 children who passed through Terezin’s gates, fewer than 150 survived.

Three of those survivors currently live in the Hamilton area. One of them is Dr. Nadia Rosa. She remembers quite vividly arriving in Terezin as a six and half year old with her mother on January 17, 1945.

“We were slated to go straight into Auschwitz,” said Rosa from her Glanbrook home, “but since we left this small concentration camp (Sered) on the 14^th, we went up to Auschwitz, but the Red Army was already coming close to Auschwitz, so they rerouted us to Terezin. So that’s why I’m here (alive).

“The whole population of this camp was a very highly educated people from Germany, Austria, Holland, Bohemia, and Moravia. And some of them were tremendously talented people,” explained Rosa. Czech composers such as Viktor Ullmann, Hans Krasa, and Pavel Haas were in Terezin. And there were enough musicians in this concentration camp that two large symphony orchestras could have been formed.

Rosa remembers some of the children at Terezin: two young girls and their respective mothers with whom she and her mom shared a room. Before her arrival in Terezin, adults had organized classes for the children. These adults also provided paper and materials so that the children could write their poems and draw their artwork, which was hidden and then later retrieved.

Some seven years ago, Ruth Fazal, a Christian by faith and violinist by profession, took some of the children’s poetry from Terezin including Mif’s poem and Pavel Friedmann’s The Butterfly, intermingled these with passages selected from the Hebrew Scriptures and composed the Oratorio Terezin. Her one hour and forty minute work was premiered in Toronto in 2003, and subsequently performed in Europe and Israel. Next Saturday, it will be performed in Hamilton Place by the Bach Elgar Choir, the Hamilton Children’s Choir, soprano Sheila Dietrich, tenor James McLennan, baritone Nathaniel Watson, and the Talisker Players under the direction of Howard Dyck with the Toronto based Fazal playing the work’s violin solos. During the performance, some artwork from Terezin will also be shown.

“The purpose of art is to address some of the big questions,” said Dyck. “And certainly, any reference to the Holocaust is addressing very big questions. And that’s why it’s so important to do this.”

One big question is where was God in all this? “In the intervening years I learned that evil flourishes constantly,” responded Rosa. “You can’t put on God human sins.”

Rosa, who has a CD of the oratorio, says the work brings on strong feelings. “I feel the fear in some of them, which was a prevalent feeling in my life,” she said. “It’s very hard to describe to someone, but if you hear it you will know what I mean…There was the gentleness of the children, and the words. You will see how strong the children could express what we felt.”

The concert is given in commemoration of the UN’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day and presented in association with the Hamilton Jewish Federation, and the UN Association in Canada. Prior to the performance, Spectator publisher Dana Robbins will give opening remarks, and Rosa will speak of Terezin. “If you want to ask me why,” asked Rosa rhetorically, “I have an obligation to all those who didn’t make it.”

***

This Saturday at 3 p.m., Hamilton tenor Bud Roach’s early music ensemble, Capella Intima, débuts with works by Carissimi, Cavalli, and others in MacNeill Baptist Church, 1145 King St. W. Tickets: $20, senior/student $15. Call 905-517-3594.

Time for the Quartet for the End of Time

Showtime

What: Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps

When: Sunday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Dofasco Centre for the Arts, 190 King William St.

Cost: $30, $25, senior $25, $20, student $5

Call: 905-522-7529

Was it the thought of living on borrowed time in a WWII POW camp, or a deep need to express a Christian faith that prompted French composer Olivier Messiaen to write his Quartet for the End of Time?

Messiaen, who served in the French medical corps, had been captured by the Germans in June, 1940, and sent to Stalag VIII A in Görlitz, near Dresden. Among his fellow POWs were a clarinetist, violinist, and cellist.

Messiaen composed an Intermède for this trio, a sympathetic German guard supplying him with music paper and pencils to do so. Bit by bit, Messiaen added seven other movements, some of them transcribed by memory from music he’d composed earlier.

Upon completion, Messiaen inscribed the title page with the words, “in homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, who raises a hand towards Heaven saying, “There shall be Time no longer,” referenced from chapter 10 in the biblical book of Revelation.

Messiaen rehearsed the difficult and complex work with the three other musicians everyday at 6 p.m. for two months. On January 15, 1941, several hundred of the camp’s prisoners assembled for a concert in Barrack 27. With Messiaen at a dilapidated upright piano, the quartet of musicians played through all eight movements, from the Liturgie de cristal to the Louange à l’Immortalité de Jésus. When all was done, those assembled had heard the première of what was to become one of the twentieth century’s greatest chamber works, Le Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps.

Messiaen denied that the title was a play on words about the end of his captivity. (He was repatriated a month later.) But could his fellow POWs have not wondered about the possibility of their deliverance, or even the Day of Judgement? Messiaen did, however, admit to punning about the end of musical time, in which the regular beats in classical music would be eliminated.

That is no truer than in the Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes. In this frenzied, and for musicians, fearsome movement, Messiaen completely avoids writing time signatures. Instead, he only uses bar lines to guide the musicians through music chockfull of irregular beats.

Messiaen’s Quatuor will be performed this Sunday at the Dofasco Centre for the Arts by cellist Jack Mendelsohn’s chamberWORKS! ensemble with pianist Valerie Tryon, clarinetist Stephen Pierre, and violinist Mark Skazinetsky. This will be the first time the work has been done in Hamilton since clarinetist Mark Thompson led a performance in 1997.

For years, Mendelsohn toyed with programming the Quatuor on his series. With Messiaen’s centenary last December, and Felix Mendelssohn’s bicentenary this past Tuesday, the time seemed right to pair the Quatuor on a bill with Mendelssohn’s First Piano Trio.

“It’s an amazing piece,” said Mendelsohn of the Quatuor, having performed it well over 30 years ago in British Columbia. “I just love that fifth movement (Louange à l’Eternité de Jésus) which is a cello solo. It’s so elegant. It’s just fantastic whether you’re a religious person or not.”

Tokyo's time to shine

Performing quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Rome.

Could there be a better job than being first violinist with the renowned Tokyo String Quartet?

“I don’t think so,” said Martin Beaver, the Tokyo’s first violinist, from his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York. “I do particularly like to travel. I certainly love seeing new places, meeting new people, enjoying the local food. And this is not to mention the fact that I’m playing arguably the best repertoire in the world of music.”

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of the group’s founding at New York’s Juilliard School of Music. And their first tour of their anniversary year takes them from coast to coast then across the Pacific to a residency in Toyama, Japan.

Next Wednesday, the high flying Tokyos touch down in Hamilton. Though they’ve played here twice since Beaver joined the group in 2002, this will be the first time they’ll appear at Hillfield Strathallan College. The Winnipeg born, Hamilton raised Beaver attended Grades 9 through 12 at Hillfield where his father, John, taught French and conducted the choir among other things.

The Tokyo’s program will include Mendelssohn’s A Minor Quartet op. 13, Bartok’s Sixth Quartet, and Beethoven’s Quartet op. 18 no. 3. The latter work has been released on CD along with the five other op. 18 quartets on the harmonia mundi label. Last September in Japan, the group finished recording Beethoven’s op. 74 and op. 95 quartets, plus the later quartets.

“Our approach to Beethoven, even since the earlier days of the Tokyo Quartet, I’d say is a little bit leaner, a little bit cleaner,” explained Beaver. “In terms of the sound, certainly in the early quartets, we’re definitely not looking for a lush, Romantic (era) kind of sound. We’re really trying to capture the spirit of a young Beethoven. With all that we know these days of performance practice in those days, we feel like we’re not doing the music any favours if we adopt a Romantic approach sound wise.”

Certainly one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Tokyo’s sound is the mastery each player has of his particular instrument. In this case, four Stradivari once owned by the nineteenth century virtuoso, Nicolo Paganini, now on loan to the group courtesy of the Nippon Foundation. A very conservative estimate at the combined value of this quartet of Strads is US $10 million.

When Beaver first joined the group, he was playing the 1729 Guarneri del Gesù on loan to him from the Canada Council Instrument Bank. (That instrument is now on loan to Canadian violinist Yi-Jia Susanne Hou.)

“They’re quite different in character,” said Beaver of the del Gesù and the Strad.“They’re both powerful and both generous in the way that they afford different colours. I would say that the Guarneri is more of an earthy kind of sound. Somehow, the Strad is a little more airborne, a little more transcendent. You don’t really get the feeling that you can completely dig in.”

But playing on one violin is not the same as playing on the next. “The big adjustment when I started playing the Strad was having to negotiate what I wanted out of the violin using the method that the Strad would like the best,” said Beaver. “If you press on a Strad, it won’t necessarily give you a sound. Very often, it’ll choke up and it won’t produce a sound. You have to learn how to produce a sound freely to get the kind of sounds you sometimes need. For instance, in Bartok, there are some sections which are quite brutal, and somehow, given that, you have to negotiate with the Strad to get that. Whereas with the Guarneri, somehow if you just press or squeeze it’ll produce that kind of sound. I might venture to say that Guarneris, objectively speaking, are easier to play.”

Beaver claims that there’d be noticeable differences in the Tokyo’s sound were he to play an instrument other than the Paganini Strad. “I think public opinion is probably that now that I am playing a Strad, we do achieve a much better blend.”

Thanks to Crescendo Concerts, you can hear the Tokyo’s blend Wednesday, January 21 at 8 p.m. in Hillfield Strathallan’s Artsplex, 299 Fennell Ave W. Tickets are $30, senior $25, student $20. Call 905-389-1367 ext. 201.

Next week is a Baroque week in McMaster University’s Convocation Hall. On Tuesday, January 20 at 12:30 p.m., the Middlesex Singers give a free concert. Next Friday at 8 p.m., Les Voix Humaines, (Susie Napper, Margaret Little and guest soprano Monika Mauch) sing music by Dowland, Marais, and others. Tickets are $17, senior $12, student $5. On Sunday, January 25 at 4 p.m., Les Boréades de Montréal perform a Beatles Baroque concert. Tickets are $20. Call 905-525-9140 ext. 24246.