"Figaro" a Hit (Again)

Posted: Jun 12, 2009 - 4:08:58 PM in: reviews_2009

Nicole Cabell as the Countess in "The Marriage of Figaro," Cincinnati Opera, Music Hall, June, 2009

Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" was the hit of 1786. It remains so 223 years later, including this opening production of Cincinnati Opera's 2009 summer festival at Music Hall. With Sir Roger Norrington in the pit, baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes and soprano Nicole Cabell as the Count and Countess and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as pure luxury casting, success was assured.
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Don Quixote Strikes Again

Posted: Jun 8, 2009 - 12:42:09 PM in: reviews_2009

The Boy, the Don and Master Peter (Madcap Puppet Theater, Cincinnati)

Spanish is the flavor of the month in Cincinnati this summer, with festivals devoted to Spanish and Spanish-themed music by both Cincinnati Opera and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. The CCO led by music director Mischa Santora led off June 7 with the piece de resistance of the lot, Manuel de Falla's "Master Peter's Puppet Show" in a masterful collaboration with Madcap Puppet Theater and the theater department of Bowling Green University. The 30-minute puppet opera is based on an episode from Cervantes' "Don Quixote."
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Mahler Makes Music Hall Sing

Posted: Jun 1, 2009 - 1:06:15 AM in: reviews_2009

Cincinnati's annual May Festival thrives in Music Hall, the landmark, Neo-Gothic structure built to accommodate it in 1878. Nothing does it better than Mahler's Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand") given a performance that felt right at home May 30 in the 3,516-seat hall. With nearly 500 performers, it also made a fitting climax to the 30th anniversary season of May Festival music director James Conlon.
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Beauty Reigns at Fourth May Festival Concert

Posted: May 30, 2009 - 12:49:30 PM in: reviews_2009

The fourth concert of the 2009 Cincinnati May Festival (May 29 in Music Hall) was a beauty. The May Festival Chorus and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, led by May Festival music director James Conlon, were joined by five engaging soloists in music reflecting the pagan origin of May festivities, along with "Hallelujahs" by Handel and Beethoven and Bach's Magnificat.
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Twilight Pauses for May Festival Basilica Concert

Posted: May 25, 2009 - 9:23:10 AM in: reviews_2009

St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, Covington, Kentucky

The Cincinnati May Festival's annual "twilight" concert in the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky featured an engaging mix of the sacred and secular May 24. Moved up an hour from its usual 7 p.m. starting time, the Cathedral's magnificent setting nevertheless availed itself of the season's abundant daylight.
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Cincinnati May Festival Opens with Taste of Broadway

Posted: May 23, 2009 - 8:26:15 AM in: reviews_2009

Patty LuPone

James Conlon, who is observing his 30th anniversary at music director of the Cincinnati May Festival, gave it a two-way taste of Broadway May 23 at Music Hall. Starring in Kurt Weill's 1933 "The Seven Deadly Sins," a precursor of the composer's own stellar Broadway career, was Broadway diva Patti LuPone. Balancing the program and highlighting the May Festival Chorus and Youth Chorus, was Mozart's Requiem.
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CCM's Falstaff" Leaves Them Laughing

Posted: May 15, 2009 - 8:09:47 AM in: reviews_2009

Katerine Giaquinto as Alice Ford and Jonathan Lasch as Falstaff (photo by Mark Lyons)

Verdi's "Falstaff" made a boffo finale for the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music's main stage opera season May 14 in Corbett Auditorium. Youthful, energetic and with pratfalls to spare, it was also the main stage directing debut of CCM's new opera department chair Robin Guarino.
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Patty and the Pops Do Broadway

Posted: May 9, 2009 - 12:04:39 PM in: reviews_2009

Sandi Patty

As a child, Sandi Patty dreamed of singing on Broadway. Her life took a different course, into gospel and fame as the most honored vocalist in contemporary music. In "Sandi Patty's Broadway," a revue traversing the Great White Way, she finally has her chance. The show, led by Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, came to Music Hall May 8-10 to close the Pops' 2008-09 season. Giving the program a poignant note, Patty sang "You'll Never Walk Alone," bringing tears to the eyes of many in the crowd who learned earlier this week that Kunzel is suffering from pancreatic cancer.
(first published at www.cincinnati.com May 9, 2009)
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Polusmiak not to be Missed

Posted: May 8, 2009 - 12:24:24 PM in: reviews_2009

Sergei Polusmiak

Pianist Sergei Polusmiak, distinguished artist-in-residence at Northern Kentucky University, gave a recital May 7 in NKU's Greaves Hall that was both heat and light, topped off with an incendiary Sonata No. 7 by Prokofiev.
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Higdon, Hahn and Schubert in Indianapolis

Posted: May 1, 2009 - 5:44:06 PM in: reviews_2009

Violinist Hilary Hahn premiered Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto Feb. 7, 2009 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra led by music director Mario Venzago at Hilbert Circle Theater in Indianapolis. The meaning of "1726," the concerto's first movement, remained a mystery, with an autographed copy of the score to the first six people to guess its meaning. Could it have something to do with Philadelphia? Also on the program was Schumann's Symphony No. 4 in Venzago's highly personal, "pianistic" interpretation, which has helped earn him the designation "Robert Schumann Guest Conductor" with the Dusseldorf Symphony during the Schumann bicentennial in 2010. (first published in American Record Guide, May-June, 2010)
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CSO Finale: Once More With Feeling

Posted: May 1, 2009 - 1:42:44 PM in: reviews_2009

Nicholas Angelich

Paavo Järvi closed the 2008-09 Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra season at Music Hall with plenty of feeling, both in his choice of repertoire and the way he conducted it. There was a warm reception, too, for returning Cincinnatian Nicholas Angelich, "guest" artist in Brahms' ardent Piano Concerto No. 1. There were more complex feelings in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 6, composed just six years before his death and ultimately rejected by the Soviet authorities. Benjamin Britten's jolly "American Overture," a CSO premiere, seems to say that the expatriate (temporarily) Briton had good feelings about the U.S.A.
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Sounds of Spring at the CSO

Posted: Apr 25, 2009 - 10:45:43 AM in: reviews_2009

photo by Timothy Greenfield Sanders

Spring brought out the best in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra April 24 at Music Hall. Led by music director Paavo Järvi, the concert featured violinist Midori's intimate look at Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and works by two French masters, Camille Saint-Saens (SymphonyNo. 3) and Olivier Messiaen's "Les offrandes oubliées" in its CSO premiere.
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What No Violins?

Posted: Apr 22, 2009 - 3:38:38 PM in: reviews_2009

Geringas Baryton Trio, l to r, Jens Peter Maintz, David Geringas, Hartmut Rohde

If you love a violin, you had to make do with its lower-voiced relatives on Chamber Music Cincinnati's concert by the Geringas Baryton Trio April 21 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. The trio -- David Geringas on baryton with violist Hartmut Rohde and cellist Jens Peter Maintz -- left the audience delighted with their discovery of this rarely heard combination, given immortality by Franz Joseph Haydn who wrote 126 baryton trios as court composer for Prince Esterhazy of Eisenstadt. The Trio performed two of Haydn's trios plus one by Luigi Tomasini and more "unviolin" music by Beethoven and Rossini.
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Tetzlaff and Could You Ask for Anything More?

Posted: Apr 18, 2009 - 10:39:25 AM in: reviews_2009

Violinist Christian Tetzlaff crowned this Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concert with a superbly musical performance of Brahms Violin Concerto. Also on the program were Mauricio Kagel's surprising Etude No. 3 and orchestral music from Berlioz' "Romeo and Juliet" Symphony. CSO music director Paavo Järvi conducted and could you ask for anything more?
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A Trip to Bohemia

Posted: Apr 6, 2009 - 3:55:39 PM in: reviews_2009

photo by Ondrej Syntrova

The arts play a vital role in troubled times. "Czech, Please," the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra's April 4 concert at Greaves Hall in Northern Kentucky was just what the doctor ordered. The program, led by music director James R. Cassidy, comprised Dvorak's Symphony No. 8, Suite from Leos Janacek's "The Cunning Little Vixen," Smetana's Overture to "The Bartered Bride" and -- a pleasant surprise -- the little known Sinfonia in D by early 19th-century Czech composer Yan Vaclav Vorisek. Giving the concert a stunning visual dimension were images from the Czech Republic shown on plasma TV screens throughout the hall.

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