Dr. Brian Asher Alhadeff, Artistic Director of Opera San Luis Obispo, now also wears the hat of General Director of the company. I had a chance to speak with him while he was taking a short break in rehearsing with the dancers for this year's production of the Nutcracker Ballet.
Maestro Alhadeff is an ardent advocate of collaboration in the classical arts. He has written, "I believe the power of collaboration is the new frontier, for not only opera, all the classical arts. When large arts organizations hold hands and work together, creative forces merge, new collaborative marketing and performance platforms are created – in essence, the planets are aligned and produce extraordinary outcomes."
The maestro's current and future projects attest to his commitment to artistic collaboration. At the moment he is preparing performances of the holiday ballet favorite, The Nutcracker. The Civic Ballet of San Luis Obispo, which is observing its 30th anniversary this year, will be accompanied by the Opera San Luis Obispo Orchestra, Maestro Alhadeff conducting. This not only marks Civic Ballet SLO's first production with live orchestra, it is also the first time the Nutcracker has ever been performed with orchestra in San Luis Obispo. The Morro Bay High School Chorus joins forces with the orchestra for the Act I finale.
The OperaSLO orchestra will take their show on the road and also accompany the State Street Ballet of Santa Barbara in its performances of the Nutcracker, again with Alhadeff conducting. Performances at the Performing Arts Center at Cal Poly are scheduled for December 8 at 2pm and again at 7pm and on December 9, at 2pm. Santa Barbara performances will take place at the beautiful Granada Theater on December 22 at 2pm and 7pm and on December 23, at 2pm.
The maestro is especially pleased by these collaborations between and among arts organizations, noting that ballet and the orchestra have been partners for more than 400 years. He invites us to "stay tuned for collaboration on a grand scale" during the 2013 season.
Among the high points will be the spring "Co-Opera" production of Mozart's Magic Flute, which will run April 11-13. OperaSLO, the Cal Poly Opera Theater, under the direction of Cal Poly faculty member and OperaSLO Artistic Advisor Jacalyn Kreitzer, and the Cuesta College North County Chorus, directed by Cassandra Tarantino, will all join forces for this favorite opera.
Next October will bring another major undertaking, a production of Bizet's Carmen. Maestro Alhadeff has worked hard on what he calls the "Carmen Project," his effort to involve many local groups in a common artistic purpose. OperaSLO will work with three other organizations, the San Luis Obispo Symphony, the Central Coast Children's Choir, and the Civic Ballet of San Luis Obispo. Under Alhadeff's leadership, we can look forward to a full menu of collaborative arts projects.
Two new members have joined the OperaSLO Board. They are Marlin Vix and Carol Nelson-Selby. Vix is professor emeritus at Cal Poly, where he taught Agricultural Policy and Marketing. Nelson-Selby is a retired Ventura County deputy district attorney, who has coached students in mock trial programs and has been a guest lecturer at Cal Poly.
Holiday Performance of Verdi's Aida
The Met live in HD series brings us a special holiday treat with the performance of Verdi's Aida on December 30. The starting time is 2:00pm at the Performing Arts Center at Cal Poly. Liudmyla Monastyrska sings the title role. Aida's lover Radames is sung by Roberto Alagna, and Amneris by Olga Borodina.
The story of Aida began with the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, who crafted a scenario based on his researches. Verdi and his librettist Antonio Ghislanzoni fashioned it into a full scale opera text. The work was first performed at the Cairo Opera House, December 2, 1871.
Aida is often thought of as the grandest of grand operas. The term and idea of "grand opera" originated in France in the early 19th century, and applied to works in which many elements of spectacle were brought to bear on a plot usually drawn from history or literature.
The French loved to see crowds on stage, as well as elements of the exotic, lavish scenery and costumes. The orchestras were large and usually featured many wind instruments, allowing for a great deal of orchestral color. Ballet had been an essential component of opera in France, going back to the Baroque era, so of course it played a key role in the 19th century.
Although few French grand operas of the 1820s-40s hold the stage today (Who was Giocomo Meyerbeer, the leading composer of the genre, anyway?), composers throughout Europe found inspiration in it, and borrowed not a few traits of it. Verdi and Wagner both were indebted to grand opera, Wagner especially. While Verdi borrowed the large scale and brilliant spectacle of grand opera, he retained the Italian emphasis on the great voice, in arias and duets.
Set in Egypt, the story of Aida is the classic conflict between duty and love. Aida and Radames are from opposing nations, Egypt and Ethiopia, and both owe loyalty to their respective peoples and rulers. Aida faces a "double duty" conflict. She is not only a princess of Ethiopia, she is also a daughter. She has a duty to her people, and also to her father Amonasro, the King of Ethiopia, who demands that she lead Radames to reveal the route of march in an upcoming battle with the Ethiopians. In a particularly wrenching scene he threatens disown her if she does not betray Radames. Amonasro is a stern Verdian father, who breaks his daughter's will, and crumpled at his feet, she agrees to ask Radames for the Egyptian army's plans.
The theme of jealousy adds more anguishing conflict to the story. Amneris, daughter of the Egyptian king, is in love with Radames and, jealous of her rival Aida, does her best to lure him away.
Aida, a typical Verdi heroine, is undone by the irrationality and violence of men. She is nevertheless a strong figure. She is not all about Radames. Unknown to the Egyptians, who view her only as a slave in Ameneris' court, she is a princess and has a keen sense of her royal stature. Amneris is also a strong figure and takes great pride in her royal position, so she is particularly incensed that Radames prefers Aida to a royal Egyptian princess.
Verdi scholar Gerald A. Mendelsohn has noted that love affairs in Verdi's operas are rarely uncomplicated. Nearly all portray love as poisoned by jealousy, deception, betrayal, even death. This story of doomed love, with its alternately intimate and spectacular moments, is played out on a large scale. In many ways Aida is a summation of Verdi's practice during most of his career, and the most thorough integration of French and Italian, older and more modern elements. It is his final essay in grand opera, (Otello and Falstaff belonging to a new world), and arguably his most perfect.
Beethoven Quartet Cycle at Cal Poly Arts
Over the next two years Cal Poly Arts will present a cycle of all Beethoven's string quartets, performed by six different ensembles. Saturday night, October 13, the Pacifica Quartet, an internationally renowned group now based at the School of Music at Indiana University, led off the series. It was a daunting program consisting of Beethoven's String Quartet in G major, Op. 18 No. 2; the Quartet in E-flat major "Harp," Op. 74; and the String Quartet in C# minor, Op. 131, arguably the most extraordinary of Beethoven's extraordinary last five quartets.
The classical string quartet evolved from light chamber music most often called "divertimento". Haydn's early works fall into this category, but by his six quartets of Op. 33, published in 1781, Haydn had achieved what he called a "new style". His quartets from this point forward were described in retrospect by a leading 18th century music theorist, Heinrich Christoph Koch, as a genre in which the four parts took turns in carrying the principal themes, while the others provided accompaniment derived from the same principal themes. It is this arrangement which gives the classical string quartet its often cited "conversational" character; each instrument gets its turns at carrying the main subject matter.
This was the string quartet as Beethoven inherited it. His first set of quartets, Op. 18 owes much to Haydn. His Quartet in G major, Op. 18, No. 2, opens with a highly conventional theme, its phrases often compared to the old style "bow and curtsy," that have earned this piece the title "Compliments Quartet," and which define its overall character. Pacifica understood this mock formality well and obliged with a performance marked by clarity of the various lines and elegant precision.
If the G major Quartet maintains an overall character of friendly, conventional conversation, the "Harp" Quartet has more distinctive themes, denser textures and greater contrasts both within and between movements, conjuring a wider range of emotions. It is called the "Harp" Quartet because of the use of a special technique, pizzicato or plucking of the strings, in the first movement.
The first movement, like much of the quartet, is marked by a lot of virtuosic string writing, as well as strong contrasts in dynamics and density of textures. The Pacifica Quartet dispatched the technical difficulties with aplomb and maintained flawless precision when executing abrupt changes in accents and dynamics, as well as in rapid trading off of themes and counter melodies.
Beethoven drew on a type of variations form for the second movement. The principal theme is one of Beethoven's simple, directly expressive melodies, almost hymn like. He marked it "cantabile"-- song-like, singingly. This theme recurs in straight-forward variations, separated by statements of a contrasting theme in the minor mode. Pacifica imbued the main theme and its variations with warm, rich sonorities, and the contrasting theme with anguished accents.
The third movement scherzo immediately reminds the listener of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, because its principal motive – like that of the Fifth – is constructed of three short repeated notes followed by a longer note. The keys are also the same, C minor. The Fifth Symphony was, after all, completed in 1808, the year prior to the Harp Quartet. But I digress. . .
Beethoven was often heavy-handed and even downright rude in his scherzo movements, as he is here. The word "scherzo" means "joke" in Italian, and Beethoven's rudeness is the main joke. Pacifica played it exactly as I think Beethoven would have liked it: alternately fierce and mincing, with much exaggeration of the abrupt contrasts that lace the movement.
The finale, somewhat unusually, is another theme and variations movement. Pacifica took as its point of departure the character of the theme: sweet, tender, yet slightly askew rhythmically.
Beethoven's late quartets are a universe unto themselves and the C# minor Quartet stands on the outer fringes of that universe. String quartets usually have four movements; the C# minor has seven, and Beethoven wanted them all played without a break. Some of the movements are typical of string quartets – theme and variations, scherzo, a driving finale. Others belong to other worlds, like the opening movement, which is a fugue.
The fugue's main theme is simple but distinctive, and highly malleable; it can be altered in many ways without losing its identity. Another way to put the matter: you can actually hear the changes in the original pretty clearly; this is a necessary trait for a good fugue theme. Pacifica rendered the movement with elegant clarity and great expressiveness, allowing the lush polyphony to unfold serenely, seeming to suspend time.
The second movement swings along with a jaunty rhythm, and indeed this rhythm characterizes the whole. Here Pacifica's supple yet precise articulation gave the music a strong sense of forward motion. The third is essentially a short transition, setting up the big central movement, the fourth, a huge essay in theme and variations form. With its internal tempo changes and long, highly contrasting variations, this can sound like multiple movements instead of only one.
Pacifica marked the strong contrast between movements four, in slow to moderate tempos, and five, a fast-paced scherzo. They played the scherzo with rich humor, exaggerating all the sudden changes from soft to loud and vice versa, wittily interlocking the short themes and passages of pizzicato. The sixth is another transition movement, bridging the scherzo and the seventh, final movement. A heavy theme played in unison opens this aggressive movement. We return to the home key of C# minor, and Beethoven combines the finale's unison theme with the main theme from the opening fugue, thus connecting the first and last movements directly.
It has long seemed to me that many passages in Beethoven's late quartets really must be played ugly. The music is written to be played this way, and the finale of the C# minor quartet is a particularly good example. Pacifica, I am happy to report, played with plenty of edge in the sound, digging deeply unto their instruments' strings and articulating the rhythms with biting precision. It was an exciting and fitting conclusion to this big work, immense not only in size but in conception, stretching both the performers and the audience.
In its command of three works spanning widely diverse styles, the Pacifica Quartet showed complete technical mastery and keen understanding of Beethoven's many voices and moods. This was a composer who was arch, tender, funny, rude, profound. We owe Pacifica our gratitude for vividly revealing Beethoven to us.
