Last night was a decent night at Symphony Hall. It began with Janáček’s rhapsody Taras Bulba. A dramantic and often exciting and beautiful work, Christian Arming did a decent job with it. Nothing stood out in his conducting of it that doesn’t jump out of the score anyway. I have to admit that my mind wandered a bit, which is probably more my fault than Arming’s: I’d been a little out of it all day.
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I found Atlanta Opera’s production of Out of Darkness: Two Remain to be a bit uneven. Composed by Jake Heggie with a libretto by Gene Scheer, it’s made up of two acts, with the first being a chamber opera and the second a musical, the plot driven forward more by unsung dialog than by the music. Both depict aged survivors struggling with their memories of the horrors of the Shoah and are based on the writings of real people. The first act was a masterpiece that moved me to tears. The second was merely decent in terms of the writing and composition and was rendered barely better than mediocre by this production’s casting and staging, though it was not without some moving moments.
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As I was walking along Peachtree toward the Woodruff Arts Center for last night’s concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, I passed a Subaru with an Alabama vanity plate that said “EROICA.” I love the idea that somewhere there is a Beethoven’s Third-Head that travels around visiting concert halls where they play Beethoven’s Symphony no. 3. Hopefully they enjoyed the concert last night: there was some good stuff in it.
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I don’t know why we bothered to sit at all at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s concert last night. The programmed works were all relatively short and Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the soloists delivered such great performances of all of them that we just had to pop out of our seats for a standing ovation after each piece. Both in terms of programming and performance, it will probably end up being my favorite concert of the season.
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I was fortunate enough to be sitting with a member of the ASO’s Talent Development Program before the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s pre-concert chamber recital this evening. I was fighting a horrible amount of grumbly grumpiness but she was sweet enough to humor some random adult asking her about her music studies. It’s amazing what a dose of youthful optimism can do to turn a mood around. Thanks to her, I was already in a pretty good mood when the music began and I’m grateful for that because it let me quickly settle into the best of the pre concert chamber recitals that I’ve been to this year.
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Henrik Nanasi was originally engaged to guest conduct this evening’s concert but he was under the weather and couldn’t make it, probably due to the after effects of an alien abduction. This evening was also the second time in a row that I’ve seen concertmaster David Coucheron come only for the last piece on the program. I assume that his tardiness is due to the legal issues with his alleged involvement in the international kitten snuggling ring. Fortunately, when alien abductions and kitten smuggling threaten to ruin a concert, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra can call on Assistant Conductor Stephen Mulligan.
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On Tuesday I attended a gallery talk for the Carlos Museum’s Divine Felines exhibit during which I learned that the Egyptian word for “cat” is pronounced “mew,” as in the sound that cats make. This is relevant for two reasons. First, it’s adorable and awesome and I think that everyone should know about it. Secondly, Augustin Hadelich, the soloist for this weekend’s Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concerts, is actually a cat according to a documentary that I saw. On the other hand, the guest conductor, Edo De Waart, is human, all too human. Given that to err is human, last night’s performance offers further confirmation of De Waart’s humanity.
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