Tag Archives: meany theater

Arts & Entertainment, Dance

Dance Goes Dutch with Introdans at Meany

Introdans HEAVENLY / HEMELS (Photo: Erwin Olaf)

In their U.S. debut—the only other stop their trip was the Joyce Theater in New York—Introdans made a terrific impression with its dancers Thursday night at UW’s Meany Theater (performances through May 12; tickets).

The Dutch company was founded in 1971 by Hans Focking and Tom Wiggers. Wiggers is still there and since 2005 has been general director, the same year another longtime  company member, Roel Voorenholt, took over the role of artistic director. Since then there has been a huge turnover in the dancers. Only two were in the company before the directorships changed over, and the rest joined in 2008 or later. Their extraordinary caliber as a company seems all the more astonishing, given their current youth, relatively, as a group.

The company describes its programs as “thematically designed modern ballet,” and the balletic background is clear in performance, the training of the very best.

The program at Meany, titled Heavenly, included works of three choreographers: Nils Christe’s Fuenf Gedichte (Five Poems), Gisela Rocha’s Paradise?, and Ed Wubbe’s Messiah.

The highlight of the performance, Christe’s Fuenf Gedichte, presented a seamless connection between the music (Wagner’s Wesendonk Lieder with the ravishing voice of Jard van Nes), the projected backdrop (roiling clouds in a blue sky), the costumes (simple body-hugging leotards or tights in dark or jewel colors and, for one dancer, brief nude-colored shorts) and of course the movement.

The choreography celebrated the beautiful fluidity of the bodies.The five sections each flowed as poems should, across the stage and in each individual, while Christe created unexpected and unusual moves within a balletic language. These required enormous strength and stamina from all the dancers, in order to keep the fluid forward motion continuing.

The other two works were less successful choreographically, though both have had success in the Netherlands. Paradise?, which appeared at first glance to be a bunch of aimless kids showing off on a foggy night in the ‘hood, under rows of glare lights, continued too long without adequate structure, though there were moments of interest. One dancer sang her way through the group with a microphone before handing it over and dancing with the rest, and a fine tap dancer arrived toward the end. The music seemed as fragmented and aimless as the kids. Certainly not paradise, but perhaps that was the interrogative point.

Wubbe’s Messiah, from 1988, felt a bit dated. The choreography, beautiful as the moves were, seemed conventional in comparison to Christe’s Gedichte, and the use of billowing, brilliant white skirts being swirled in huge figure-eights across the back gave one a distinct feel of Martha Graham. The rest danced in severe black. Somehow, the music from Messiah felt like a disconnect. There seemed no relevance in the dance to either words of great joy or great sorrow.

Yet, throughout the performance, the pleasure derived simply in watching these superb dancers overcame shortcomings in the choreography. I hope to see them return.

Arts & Entertainment, Dance, Visual Arts

Chunky Move Puts Mechanical Technology in Motion at Meany

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Chunky Move's Connected (Photo: Jeff Busby)

Reading the notes before the performance by Chunky Move (at UW’s Meany Theater through April 14; tickets: $39) left this audience member totally bewildered. Yet in rereading the notes after the performance, the light dawned and they made sense.

Gideon Obarzanek, the imaginative choreographer and director of this Australian dance company, was describing the collaboration between two arts, an intentionally mobile sculpture and the choreography designed to mimic it with moving bodies on stage, the two impelling each other.

The sculpture, by America’s Reuben Margolin, follows his series of “large scale undulating installations that attempt to combine the logic of mathematics with the sensuousness of nature,” as they are described in the notes.

The fascinating result, an hour-long performance titled Connected, had the sculpture taking up a full third of the stage. It looked like a streamlined Rube Goldberg piece with, at one side, a bicycle-sized wheel incorporating strands like a dreamcatcher, and dozens of strands coming out from it slanting upwards to the other side, dropping then in orderly rows almost to the floor with bulbs at the ends, perhaps like a machine which came out of a 19th-century factory.

To begin with, while the sculpture was still, the dancers careened around frenetically, sometimes individually, sometimes together. With moves you’d never expect to see in a ballet studio, the dancers in their oiled ease, speed, and flexibility displayed superb training in their genre.

The performance moved from segment to segment, seeming to have no particular reason for their sequence, no particular beginning or end to the work. During the first part one or more dancers took time to connect small pieces to the bottom of the hanging strands. Later one dancer connected the other four to strands themselves, like marionettes with horizontal strings. As they moved, so did the hanging strands, showing the connected pieces to be a grid of open squares which gracefully floated up and down in different configurations.

At another moment, the dancers, who had been wearing knee-length tights with short or long sleeved tops, four in black, one in white, gradually left the stage and came back dressed as security guards in suits, ties, and plastic name tags, walking around the stage while voices gave comments made by real-life guards about their philosophy on their dead-end jobs. One guard walked in squares, each side blocked at the end by another guard, so the square became smaller and smaller until she was blocked from moving anywhere, after which they shed most of their clothes to bikini bottoms and long-sleeved shirts, playing athletic games.

The accompaniment, by Oren Ambarchi and Robin Fox, for this mesmerizing production sounded like what you would hear on an ancient factory floor, with the repetitive sound of machines changing with different areas of the factory. Sometimes there were electronic whistles, at others the noise of things moving in a tunnel with attendant air pressure, only occasionally with actual tones, sometimes very loud and sometimes no sound at all.

The work was performed without intermission and in other hands and lesser inspiration might have seemed more disconnected than connected, but the sense of early mechanical technology in motion pervaded thoughout, and was enhanced by the lighting of Benjamin Cisterne.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Theatre

Young Artists Don Pasquale is a Walk on the Funny Side of the Street

Michael Uloth as Don Pasquale and Amanda Opuszynski as Norina in Seattle Opera's Young Artists production of Don Pasquale. (Photo: © Elise Bakketun)

Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (at Meany Theater through April 7; tickets: $55 adults, $20 students) is a couple of hours of lightweight froth, very amusing in the right hands. Luckily for Seattle Opera Young Artists Program, it has those hands in charge. Artistic director Peter Kazaras is a master of detail who can flesh out the slimmest of stories and make it fun to watch as well as hear.

Essentially it’s the story of the old man who thinks he’s wed young woman: She leads him a merry dance until he is delighted to be rid of her, when his long-suffering nephew (who is the girl’s real love) gets her instead.

The Young Artist’s spring performance moved this year from Bellevue’s Meydenbauer to Meany Theater, and has two more performances next weekend. Saturday’s opening night saw bass Michael Uloth in the title role, with tenor Andrew Stenson as his nephew Ernesto, baritone David Krohn as Dr. Malatesta, Ernesto’s friend and Don Pasquale’s doctor, and soprano Amanda Opuszynski as Norina, the girl in the middle.

Fine singing from them all throughout was highlighted by a rare patter song for bass/baritone duet, with Uloth and Krohn aquitting themselves at full speed.

However, the opera story is so slight that it needs plenty of help from the acting and visuals to keep it alive and here the young singers excelled, particularly Uloth and Opuszynski, who have the lion’s share of the funny side of things.

The youthful Uloth portrays a creaky-jointed septuagenarian with a little pot belly and a long skinny face, topped by wisps of grey hair around a long visage adorned with rimless glasses. His mannerisms fit the picture, especially his efforts to sit down and get up again.

The pert and lively Opuszynski, the center of the action, has a blast pretending to be a shy, demure, virginal girl, dressed to match, until the pseudo-knot is tied when she turns into a virago. Krohn, whose character masterminds the plot, deftly keeps things going, feeding the old man pills and water when it all seems to be getting too much for him, while Stenson, the straight man in the story, doesn’t have much to do except be upset at the start until he’s let into the plot, and then ardent towards the end.

Colorful costumes, designed with flair by the UW’s senior lecturer Deborah Trout, come from the 1950s post-war era, when dresses were full skirted and pretty.

Sets are minimal but Don Pasquale’s era show in the projected backdrops of heavy draperies and lots of gilded plasterwork, and Norina’s totally modern art choices come as a shocking departure. Clever touches abound, such as the moving laundry line in Norina’s sparsely furnished original apartment which brings in clothing, not to mention messages attached to a clothes peg.

Brian Garman conducted the orchestra with deft pacing in Donizetti’s charming music, and the whole is an evening’s humorous entertainment.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Theatre

Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Sing a “Dolce Vita” Don Pasquale

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Michael Uloth as Don Pasquale and Amanda Opuszynski as Norina in Seattle Opera's Young Artists production of Don Pasquale. (Photo: © Elise Bakketun)
  • Performances of Seattle Opera Young Artists Don Pasquale are 7.30 p.m. on March 31 and April 6 and 7, matinée April 1 at 2 p.m. Tickets: $55 adults, $20 students.

“Anglo-Saxon fairy tales end with marriage and living happily ever after. Italian comedy begins there, and the woman outfoxes the man every step of the way.” So says Peter Kazaras, stage director for Seattle Opera Young Artists Program (YAP) production of Donizetti’s comedy Don Pasquale, which opens Saturday for two weekends at the University of Washington’s Meany Theater.

It’s the tale of an old man who plans to take a young wife, in order to teach his nephew and heir Ernesto a lesson. Ernesto is refusing to marry the girl of Don Pasquale’s choice. But Don P’s friend, Dr. Malatesta, foresees much trouble ahead, and organizes a fake marriage with Norina, the girl Ernesto wants to marry. Norina is meek until the fake ceremony is over and then proceeds to lead the old man a wild dance, making his life a misery with a sequence of—to us—extremely funny episodes, until finally everything is put right, the old man is relieved to be rid of his unruly bride and the young lovers are together.

Kazaras has set it in Fellini’s Rome of La Dolce Vita, the 1950s to ’60s, where fashion, and Norina, are forging ahead with post-war abandon, but Don P is stuck somewhere in pre-war style.

Every year the Young Artists Program brings in nine or ten promising young singers on the threshold of operatic careers. The 21-week program gives them coaching in all aspects of being an opera singer, from physical well-being to acting to the business side of things as well as lots of performing. The fall offering travels with minimal sets and costumes all around the state, and unitl now, the spring opera has been fully staged at the Theater at Meydenbauer in Bellevue. This year, with Don Pasquale, it has moved to Meany Theater.

“Meany has wonderful acoustics, but it’s frankly a challenge going into a space three times the size of the previous space,” says Kazaras.

The YAP budget has become more and more limited, and Kazaras and his design team have had to use their formidable imaginations to overcome this. Set designer Donald Eastman’s unerrring eye, Deborah Trout’s costumes, and Chris Reay’s lighting are combining to present something fresh and fun.

Just using projections is not the answer, as they often involve triple the rehearsal time, but they are one of many design choices which can be used to enhance the whole, as they are here. (Think: Norina’s redecorating scheme.)

How to choose the right opera for the young participants is a puzzle Kazaras cannot begin to put together until he knows who those singers will be and what their voices are like. It isn’t just a choice of soprano, mezzo, tenor, baritone, as one may have a Mozart or Handel voice, another clearly heading to Puccini or even Wagner eventually, and Kazaras must find an opera which will give the singers experience, suit their voices, and also nurture what are still young instruments, easily damaged by overloading.

Established artists have sung roles many times and know what they need to do to perform consistently throughout an opera. Young artists, says Kazaras, “don’t know yet what they can’t do. They are more willing to try anything. No one says ‘I don’t do this or I can’t do that.’ It’s at this point they find things they thought they couldn’t do and that they can do. It’s my job to make that process more manageable as they go forward.”

Since the inception of the program, the young artists have also found themselves cast in mainstage productions of Seattle Opera, though only in recent years have they been included while they are still in the program. This has made choosing them trickier, as Kazaras, with YAP director Aren Der Hacopian and music director Brian Garman must also think of the mainstage productions coming up where some of those voices will be needed. Young artists often return here for a second year, and it’s those, whose voices and capacities are better known, who are most often picked for the main stage.

“It’s one of the challenges of working with them,” says Kazaras.

Five of this year’s crop sang solo roles in the mainstage production of Carmen. “It didn’t sound like established artists up here and young artists struggling at the bottom” says Kazaras with satisfaction. Tenor Andrew Stenson, in his second year with the program, was the cover for Orpheus in the recent main stage production of Orphée et Eurydice. It so happened that he had to take over the role on March 4 for William Burden and did it well.

Four young artists appear in the upcoming production of Madama Butterfly, which Kazaras is also directing, including Sarah Larsen as Suzuki. Seattle Opera takes on a new venture with Butterfly. Opening night will be simulcast at Key Arena, free to the 8,000 people the arena will hold. Experienced video-director Frank Zamacona will be directing the multi-camera shoot, as he has done before for San Francisco Opera.

Kazaras then will have a short break before coming back for the summer opera, Puccini’s Turandot, when he is returning to his first career, as tenor. While nowadays he spends much more time directing and working with young artists—he is Director of Opera UCLA, and a professor there—he has sung on opera stages worldwide, and for Turandot he will take on the small role of the Emperor Altoum.

“When else am I going to be able to say I’m singing the same role with Seattle Opera as Giovanni Martinelli did in 1967?”

Fist, though comes Don Pasquale, which opens Saturday night. “This isn’t a show,” says Kazaras, “about people coming to see something opulent and old fashioned. This is sleek, witty, and very beautiful.”

Arts & Entertainment, Music

What We’re Hearing This Month: Classical Music Picks for March

March is upon us, but it’s still blustery, rainy, and cold outside. Luckily, Seattle’s got plenty of live classical music to keep you warm while we all hunker down and wait for spring to arrive. Our picks for the month range from epic choral works to 20th century piano pieces. Experience chamber music in a cafe or hear a jazz trio perform Stravinsky. There’s something for everyone!

The Bad Plus (Photo: The Durham Herald-Sun)

Mar. 1 – 3 — Welcome the month of March with some modern dance. Limón Dance Company performs works by Latin American choreographers at University of Washington’s Meany Hall.

Mar. 9 — Head over the pond to Bellevue to Cafe Cesura, where members of the Parnassus Project and Classical Revolution present a free evening of French chamber music. Relax with a cup of coffee and enjoy live classical music in a casual setting.

Mar. 10  — Experience The Rite of Spring in an entirely new way. Experimental jazz trio The Bad Plus performs the score for Stravinsky’s revolutionary ballet at Tacoma’s Pantages Theater.

Mar. 10 — Four brand-new choral works by composers Mason Bates, Ted Hearne, Paul Crabtree, and The Esoterics‘ own Eric Banks at St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill, featuring Bates’ Sirens (2009), a six-movement piece commissioned by Chanticleer that explores the seductive, mythical creatures from a variety of cultures.

Mar. 10 – 11 — St. James Cathedral provides a spectacular setting for Seattle Pro Musica‘s performance of  J. S. Bach’s masterpiece, the St. John Passion.

Mar. 14 — Support local composers! Choral Arts performs Pietá, a work by Seattle composer John Muehleisen, at St. Mark’s Cathedral.

Mar. 17 – 18 — Seattle Pianist Collective presents “End Times”, a program of piano works by Olivier Messiaen. The March 17 concert is at the Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center. March 18’s performance is at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Stephen Stubbs, director of Pacific Musicworks (Photo: Berkshire Fine Arts)

Mar. 30 – 31 — Head to Daniels Recital Hall downtown for Pacific Musicworks‘ performance of Handel’s Il Triomfo del Tempo (“The Triumph of Time”), featuring four vocal soloists and a full Baroque orchestra.

Mar. 31 — Music Northwest celebrates Debussy’s birthday with a concert of the composer’s most celebrated chamber music works, held at Olympic Recital Hall on the South Seattle Community College campus.

Mar. 31 – Apr. 7 — Witness the talented cast of Seattle Opera Young Artists perform Donizetti’s Don Pasquale at University of Washington’s Meany Hall.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Till Fellner Turns in a Cool, Crisp Performance at Meany’s President’s Piano Series

Till Fellner (Photo: Ben Ealovega)

The UW President’s Piano Series opened Tuesday at Meany Theater with Austrian musician Till Fellner playing Haydn, Schumann, Liszt, and a new work by Kit Armstrong.

The last-mentioned is a 19-year-old prodigy who began formal composition and piano studies at five and college at seven, appeared as piano soloist with orchestra aged eight, had many compositions to his credit by ten, and is now studying with pianist Alfred Brendel in London, while also pursuing science studies in the field of pure mathematics at the Pierre and Marie Curie Institute.

I wish some of the above information about him had been in the program. Armstrong’s notes were intellectual and mathematical, as though music was a specific problem to be worked out, and the nearest to a feeling being one mention of “floating.”

Fellner, who has also studied with Brendel, has that great pianist’s thoughtful and less-is-more approach to understanding a composer, but his performance Tuesday could have used more warmth.

That said, his performance of Haydn’s Sonata in C major, Hob XVI:50, composed quite late in the composer’s life, was a marvel of elegance, clarity and exquisite touch. Fellner could have been playing a fortepiano, with his articulation and airy lightness creating notes which almost bounced out of the keys like impish drops of sound in the opening measures.

He could also play with an equally beautiful legato, his hands seemingly just stroking the sound out.

The choice of this sonata to go before the Armstrong might have been intentional, as Armstrong’s piece, Half of One, Six Dozen of the Other, also had these light, bouncing notes spaced like drops at both beginning and end. It’s a 15-minute work, composed for Fellner, and is classical in its style and restraint, though entirely modern in its harmonies which however are not dissonant. There is no romantic outpouring here, though as the work grows and arcs, the spare beginning becomes more fast and furious.

It suited Fellner, whose playing seems characterized by impeccable, yet restrained, performance.

This was all very well here, but Schumann’s  Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) and Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage: Deuxième Année: Italie (Years of Pilgrimage, Second Year, Italy) both required more emotion. [You can also hear Craig Sheppard take on Années de Pèlerinage this Friday at Meany-Ed.]

Each of these works comprises many sections (13 in the Schumann, nine in the Liszt), each with titles which indicate something about the content. While these were all listed in the program, they were useless during the performance, when one might have wished to see just what the composer was describing, such as in the ninth Schumann scene, “Knight of the hobbyhorse.” Meany Theater has always turned the lights down so that it is impossible to refer to the program during the performance. I do wish this could be changed. It often detracts from the enjoyment when one is left puzzling about what the composer was after.

Fellner’s playing of both works was always beautiful, but the overall feel he conveyed was one of introspection. The only time when it seemed to really come alive being with the gleam of humor which shone through in the third Liszt section, the “Canzonetta of Salvator Rosa” where a leisurely, jaunty, crisp rhythm pervailed.

A little more passion throughout wouldn’t have come amiss. Next up in the series is Nikolai Lugansky, on November 15.