Author Archives: Robbie

Komansé Dance Theater: Skid

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Seeing Komansé Dance Theater’s Skid on Friday was my first time in the Ferst Center since its auditorium was renovated. It’s Sunday and my back still hasn’t fully recovered from the awful new seats. The seat-backs tilt forward somewhere around 10-15°. What animal are those even designed for? Definitely not human and definitely not someone with a lower back problem like mine. The center aisle has been done away with and replaced with two aisles separating three seating sections, which is nice since now there are actually seats in the middle of the auditorium. Gone, too, are the bright safety lights that were on the steps in that middle aisle that would get in your eye if you sat within 5 or so seats of the aisle. They’ve been replaced by bright, white lights in the sides of the seats on either side of the aisles that are directed out instead of down so that now you get to enjoy having bright lights in your peripheral vision no matter where you sit. I was in row F, which is the first terraced row and a half-step above E. I thought it was a good height and would afford me a good view of the stage even if a six-foot tall person sat in front of me. Row G is two steps above F, so if you’re really short you may want to sit there. Or you may want to see if they’ll let you stand to avoid having the seat try to push you into a poor and painful posture. I have two more things on my calendar for the Ferst this season: I’ll be taking a lumbar pillow with me to the next one and if that fails to help me then I may just be done with the venue all together. Although I’ve actually been going there more often in recent years, that’s mostly been because of favorable scheduling as the programming has become less and less interesting to me in recent seasons.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Roberto Díaz

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Thursday’s program for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra began with two pieces that were making their Atlanta debut but, interestingly, had been conducted at their respective world premiers by Robert Spano. The first of these was Alex Turley’s City of Ghosts. The first thing that caught my attention was the diminished string complement: each section had only two musicians with the exception of the solitary double bassist. At first it came across as merely atmospheric, but it quickly became interesting. The strings seemed to be in the background of the piece, with the woodwinds and brass standing out, and occasionally would ease their way to the forefront. At times this was effective, like the strings were apparitions fading in and out of perception, but it often sounded like the dynamics were just off, as though we should have been able to hear the strings more clearly. I’m not entirely sure if this was due to Turley’s intent or a function of the conducting. It’s an interesting piece and reasonably enjoyable but the sense of imbalanced dynamics left me feeling a bit ambivalent towards it.
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ACP: Rapido! National Finals

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I generally enjoyed all five of the pieces that were finalists in this year’s Rapido! Competition produced by the Atlanta Chamber Players. The theme this year was dance and the instrumentation was flute, clarinet, and cello. Once again, my favorite wasn’t the one that the judges picked but their choice was one of the three of the five that I would like to hear expanded upon.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Johannes Moser

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Thursday’s Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert was proceeded by a chamber recital featuring three pieces. First was Shostakovich’s Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano. It’s a good set of pieces and it was played well enough, though I found nothing exciting or exceptional about either the works nor the performance. The next piece featured the first three movements from Smetana’s String Quartet no. 1 with the order of the second and third transposed. This was performed by the Peachtree String Quartet. It’s a good piece but I found the performance a little weak around the parts that required slow and quiet playing. In particular, I felt that the second violin failed to maintain a good sound with his bow wandering up and down the strings. In terms of musicianship, I felt that the final piece was the best played and I ended up enjoying it the most of the three. Arthur Berg’s Woodwind Quartet in C Major came across as particularly upbeat following the Smetana; even the adante middle movement was kind of uplifting. I found myself feeling like it was a delightful shelf upon which to rest my mind while waiting for the orchestra to begin playing the main program for the evening.
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National Ballet Theatre of Odessa: Swan Lake

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It occurred to me that you could keep the choreography for Swan Lake exactly the same and change the story to be about a prince who encounters a magical swan who helps him to realize that animals are people too and sets him on the path towards becoming an animal rights activist. The prince turns down the four princesses because each has livestock as part of their dowry. Von Rothbart is a swan farmer and Odile is actually his daughter who tricks the prince into swearing to protect her father from those in the kingdom who would take away his living. Really, Rothbart makes a lot more sense this way than being some random magician who likes turning young women into swans. I mean, what’s that about? Is he supposed to be some sort of incel misogynist taking his revenge through sorcery on women who won’t date him? And, really, the prince falling in love with a freakin’ swan-lady on first sight is pretty shallow and just a little on the gross side. Unless he’s got some serious bestiality fetish for birds, I don’t think someone that shallow is going to risk his life to fight a wizard who can summon lightening and turn people into animals. He’d be like, “Oh, you’re hot but there are other fish in the sea…or birds in the sky…or ducks in the pond…whatever,” and then go have his way with some serf girl who will be killed if she says no to him because, let’s face it, the reality of feudalism and our romantic ideals aren’t really as compatible as the modern adaptations of the old European folktales may want us to believe. I find it much more believable that the prince became a vegan and tried to keep the swans dancing to Tchaikovsky instead of singing Orff.
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ASO: Edward Gardner with Simon Trpčeski

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Maestro Edward Gardner gave a brief introduction to the pieces on the program before he began conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in last night’s all Rachmaninov program. I always appreciate it when conductors or soloists give a bit of an intro like that: even if everything they say is in the program notes, the way that they say it gives a clue as to how they see the work. He did a decent job as a conductor, too. He took Isle of the Dead dramatically but not without sensitivity to begin the concert. There was nothing exceptional or exciting in his interpretation, but it was good. Similarly, Symphonic Dances at the end of the program got a solid treatment but without anything notable standing out about Gardner’s approach. I don’t think that I had known until I read the program notes before the concert that Rachmaninov had originally started work on the piece as a ballet to be choreographed by Fokine. It’s a shame that the choreographer died before its completion because I think that the music suits his choreographic style immensely well.
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ASO: Robert Spano and Louis Lortie

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While Robert Spano was conducting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Christopher Theofanidis’ Symphony no. 1, I found myself thinking about something one of my college philosophy professors said about Immanuel Kant. She said something along the lines that he would put thoughts and ideas in a box until it was filled and then write a book out of what was in it. I have no idea as to the veracity of this story, but I kind of got the feeling that this was how Theofanidis composed his symphony because it seemed like a bunch of unconnected aesthetic ideas mashed together into an oddly and impressively coherent whole.
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