Several of the people from the Spoleto Festival USA I’ve interviewed for this series have expressed the same idea: that attending these varied events in close proximity to each other gives you an enhanced appreciation for each event that you might not have otherwise. As the end of my latest visit to the festival draws near, I can heartily confirm that’s true.

Pianist Pedja Muzijevic plays one of the pianos in the Hamburg Steinway & Sons showrooms in Germany. Photo by Christina Czybik.

Some of the concerts I’ve attended have distilled that concept to its most basic. For example, the Dialogues recital given by the brilliant pianist Pedja Muzejevich as part of the Music in Time series. He gave a performance at the Simons Center Recital Hall at the College of Charleston that juxtaposed the familiar language of Haydn piano sonatas with much more unusual works, such as John Cage’s Bacchanal for Prepared Piano, which at times makes the piano sound like a rhythmic machine, and in slower passages like an exotic Asian instrument. Having that type of sound experience gives you fresh perspective on how Haydn sounds now, and how his music might have sounded when it was first heard.

Other combinations aren’t as stark in contrast, but just as meaningful. My favorite was the coupling of two works for chorus and orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams in one part of a concert, with the Mozart Great Mass in the other. Comparing Mozart’s stately yet profound religious expression with the lush and rapturous writing of Vaughan Williams made the qualities of each composer’s work stand out all the more. Of course, I would have enjoyed that program in any event since it featured one of my all-time favorite pieces. The Serenade to Music by Vaughan Williams featured exquisite solo violin work by the uncredited concertmaster, as well as beautiful vocal solos from soprano Sherezade Panthaki and tenor Jamez McCorkle (who also stood out during this festival for his moving rendition of Lensky’s aria in Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin).

Soprano Pureum Jo performs with the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra during Mahler 4 and Dreaming. Photo by William Struhs.

The pairing of Mahler’s 4^th Symphony with a contemporary orchestral piece was another concert program which worked wonderfully well. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s atmospheric Dreaming (with its rumblings, chirps, groans, cracks and other sonic effects) brought to my mind images of great whales swimming in frozen seas, and majestic glaciers drifting in icy flows. Its introspective quality was offset nicely by the exuberant Mahler, which under John Kennedy’s direction was everything music by that composer can be. Imaginative, quirky, mercurial and sublime, the score frequently built to spine-tingling explosions of orchestral color perfectly modulated by the Spoleto Festival USA orchestra.

Franco Pomponi as Eugene Onegin and Natalia Pavlova as Tatyana Larina in Eugene Onegin at Spoleto Festival USA. Photo by Leigh Webber Photography.

Similarly, the contrast between the three opera productions made each more memorable. After the mannered Baroque approach of Vivaldi’s Farnace, and the austere modernity of Quartett by Luca Francesconi, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin seemed the pinnacle of lush Romanticism. It was also distinguished by the cinematic staging of director Chen Shi-Zheng, which used projected film of the striking soprano Natalia Pavlova (in close-up as well as silhouette) to take us into the inner life of her character, Tatyana.

Franco Pomponi as Eugene Onegin with cast in Eugene Onegin at Spoleto Festival USA. Photo by Leigh Webber Photography.

I also admired the forest of stylized birch trees that formed the main feature of the set (though they did cramp the choreography a bit in the ball scene that features some of Tchaikovsky’s most familiar opera music, the famous waltz and polonaise from the score which have become concert staples). The staging of Lensky’s aria was stunningly beautiful yet simple: the stage stripped bare all the way back to the walls of the backstage area, with both real and projected snowflakes swirling against the black background conveying Lensky’s desolation as he awaits the duel which he may not survive.

Jamez McCorkle as Vladimir Lenski in Eugene Onegin at Spoleto Festival USA. Photo by Leigh Webber Photography.

Despite the embarrassment of artistic riches I’ve enjoyed over the past couple of weeks, there’s so much I didn’t have a chance to catch, so I guess a return visit for a future season is in order. After this experience, I certainly won’t hesitate to come back.

The Dock Street Theatre in Charleston is a remarkable venue. With its graceful exterior architecture, it matches the charm of the surrounding historic neighborhood. Its seating provides an intimate experience for audience members, and its brick courtyard is a pleasant space for refreshment during intermissions. But to me what’s most impressive about it is its versatility. During this season of the Spoleto Festival USA the Dock Street stage is the home of the Vivaldi opera Farnace and the Beckett play Waiting for Godot running in repertory, yet the theater also still houses the twice-daily performances of the justly celebrated Spoleto Chamber Music Series.

Dock Street Theatre in Charleston, SC; photo by Julia Lynn Photography.

On the morning I attended a performance in the series the program featured a lilting Bach concerto, a contemplative multi-media world premiere for piano and video, and the emotionally raw Piano Trio in D Minor by Robert Schumann, all three works superbly performed. The distinguishing feature of all the events in the series is the charismatic, informal and insightful commentary of the series director, Geoff Nuttall. There’s also the wonderful vantage point provided by the house itself, which enables you to see the interaction between the musicians – and occasionally with the audience – in a way that’s simply not possible in most performance halls.

While the program I enjoyed won’t be performed again during this festival, there are many others planned with a wide range of music and performers. The concerts are given daily through June 11^th at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. If you enjoy chamber music, you’re not likely to be disappointed attending any one of them.

My first experience with contemporary opera at Spoleto Festival USA was Kaija Saariaho’s Émelie in 2011, which I found moving and enthralling despite the unusual character of the music – or perhaps because of it. So I was open to a similar experience this season with Quartett, written the same year with music and libretto by Luca Francesconi. And there’s no faulting the skills of all of the technical and performing artists collaborating on this production, which was first staged at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, London. My qualms are with the story itself.

Adrian Angelico as Merteuil and Christian Miedl as Vicomte de Valmont in Quartett. Photo © Leigh Webber Photography.

Quartett is an adaptation of a 1980 play by Heiner Müller, which in turns takes as its source the novel which inspired the film Dangerous Liaisons. But in this opera we find no malevolently beautiful figures like Glenn Close and John Malkovich, no occasional moments of wicked humor as relief, no respite in the elegance of beautiful settings, costumes, or for that matter, music. Instead there is an apocalyptic landscape, represented by a narrow playing area for the singer/actors on metal grids downstage of the orchestra. Suspended over the stage are long, pale shreds of fabric on which are projected all manner of atmospheric lights and eerie animations. The only characters in the piece, the Marquise and Valmont, are clad in grimy underclothes and covered in dirt, as if they’ve survived some cataclysm.

The music is atonal and demanding, and the cliché would be to describe it as horror movie music, but that’s actually quite appropriate for a tale in which two human monsters battle to the death while role playing disturbing scenarios. Mezzo-soprano Adrian Angelico and baritone Christian Miedl are daring and virtuosic in the roles, which they inhabit fully. Angelico possesses a ferocious lower register but can still hit penetrating high notes, while his voice has a brassy burnish; Miedl also occasionally uses a “head voice” for falsetto passages to nightmarish effect. Their voices are amplified, not necessarily to compensate for the hanger-like space at Memminger Auditorium, but primarily because at points they are electronically distorted for dramatic effect. The singers are also featured in recorded sections with a larger orchestra and choir.

Scene from Quartett at Charleston’s Memminger Auditorium during Spoleto Festival USA. Photo © Leigh Webber Photography.

The live chamber orchestra on stage with the singers performs a tour de force of disorienting and unsettling effects, and under the direction of John Kennedy blends so seamlessly with the pre-recorded and electronically altered musical episodes that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish between the live and recorded music.

But ultimately it’s a bleak and unedifying story focused on depraved individuals detached from their own humanity. The composer seems to suggest in his program notes that this is an unfortunate aspect of our world that he wants the audience to reflect upon, but it’s hard to understand how witnessing this in operatic form provides any meaningful insight. Still, it’s gratifying to know that there is a place at Spoleto Festival USA for this type of challenging contemporary work, and there was clearly an appreciative audience for it at the performance I attended.

There are few settings in Charleston more idyllic for a concert than the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul. Watching the late afternoon light as it slants through the windows on the west side of the sanctuary, with the stained glass behind the altar providing a dramatic backdrop to the Westminster Choir in their evening attire, you feel like you’re in for a special experience, and indeed, you are.

The Westminster Choir has been the Choir in Residence at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston for many years, since the days when the ensemble was led by the legendary Joseph Flummerfelt. Upon Flummerfelt’s retirement, Joe Miller assumed the role, and he continues the tradition of presenting sublime a cappella concerts in that special hour before a late spring evening gets underway. Miller has distinguished himself by programming especially thoughtful and inventive choral performances, and the concert I attended on Memorial Day is a perfect example of his approach.

The Westminster Choir at Charleston’s Cathedral Church of St. Luke & St. Paul at the Spoleto Festival USA. Photo by Julia Lynn Photography.

Contemporary settings of sacred texts in Latin formed the bookends of the first part of the concert. “Lux surgit aurea” – “See the golden sun arise” – by Bernat Vivancos harkens back to medieval chant and Renaissance polyphony at the opening and close, but in the middle enters an ethereal, contemporary realm. On the far side of the concert program, “Laudibus in Sanctis” – “Celebrate the Lord Most High” – by Ugis Praulins had dramatic shifts in mood propelled by driving rhythms reminiscent of Carl Orff.

In between there was an Abendstandschen, or Evensong, by Johannes Brahms that featured his characteristically rich choral writing, and a setting by Kile Smith of the words of the Apollo 8 astronauts on Christmas Eve of 1968 which was made otherworldly by the use of hand bells and the resonant droning of high soprano voices.

Spoleto Festival USA’s Director of Choral Activities, Joe Miller.
Photo by Julia Lynn Photography.

There was also an infectious pair of folk hymns, sung in the distinctive, American 18^th century shape note style of singing. These were sung by a subset of the choir separating from the group and assembling in the crossing between the transepts of the cathedral; and a stirring spiritual, “Yonder Come Day,” with alto soloists Taria Mitchell and Pauline Taumalolo, as well as percussion provided by choir members using a tambourine and a broom handle. Paul Crabtree’s “Death and Resurrection” brought us back to the present day. It concludes with a haunting Shaker text: “Do all your work as though you had a thousand years to live/And as you would if you knew you must die tomorrow.”

The second part of the program consisted of the American folk tunes in choral arrangements that have become a signature of the Westminster Choir, including the nostalgic “Shenandoah.” I have never been to concert by this choir at the festival that hasn’t received a standing ovation at the end, and this one was no exception. In exchange, we were rewarded with two encores, one of them an apt and exquisite setting of the standard, “I’ll Be Seeing You.” The choir repeats the program on Saturday, June 3^rd.

Druid’s Aaron Monaghan, Garrett Lombard, and Marty Rea in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Photo by Matthew Thompson.

Playwright Samuel Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece Waiting for Godot has attracted legendary performers, from familiar movie character actors Tom Ewell and Burt Lahr in the first U.S. production, to comic icons Steve Martin and the late Robin Williams, and more recently distinguished knighted thespians Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan. No doubt the attraction for performers is the challenge of keeping an audience engaged over two and a half hours of theater where the meaning can be elusive, though the rewards are plentiful. By turns bawdy and poetic, and frequently hilarious, in one sense the play isn’t all that mystifying when taken at face value as a rumination on existence.

The cast of this production from Ireland’s Druid Theater is more than up to the challenge. In their tattered costumes, and with their distinct physical types, they have some of the pathos of silent film comedians, but with their broad physical humor, exaggerated stances, heightened gestures and manic expressions, they seem like Warner Brothers cartoon characters come to life. The team of director Garry Hynes and designer Francis O’Connnor, who worked such magic with the Festival production of the Vivaldi opera Farnace, deliver another visually rich experience with this play. To borrow a recurring bit of dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon: “Is this a good thing?” “It will pass the time.” To which I would add, “It will pass it very well.”

Waiting for Godot has numerous performances through the end of the festival at the Dock Street Theatre. Check the schedule at spoletousa.org for show dates and times.

Make sure you receive each episode of our WDAV Dispatch from Spoleto podcast automatically to your computer or smartphone, visit the WDAV Dispatch from Spoleto page to subscribe.

This WDAV Dispatch from Spoleto reviews two productions from the 2017 festival: the US premiere of a once-celebrated, now obscure opera; and the return to Charleston of an internationally acclaimed flamenco dance company.

Antonio Vivaldi is one of my favorite composers, but like most classical music lovers, I know him primarily because of his instrumental concertos, with the set known as The Four Seasons his most familiar and ubiquitous. Yet during his career, Vivaldi enjoyed far more success as an opera composer, and of his more than forty operas, Farnace enjoyed the greatest popularity. So I really looked forward to seeing and hearing my first Vivaldi opera, and the Spoleto Festival USA production running at the Dock Street Theater did not disappoint, with a staging and performance that matched Vivaldi’s music in energy, invention and sheer beauty.

Scene from Farnace. Photo courtesy of Spoleto Festival USA/Leigh Webber Photography.

The libretto is the opera’s weakest point. The title character is the defeated King of Pontus, who orders his wife to kill their son and then herself rather than subject to humiliation and slavery at the hands of the Roman conquerors. So it’s hard to warm up to this character, to say the least. And his captured sister, the beautiful Selinda, seduces two enemy suitors in order to turn them against their leaders and win her freedom, as well as restore her brother to the throne. By the time all the conflict is resolved happily in the final act, the abruptness of the resolution drew laughter from the festival audience that I’m certain wasn’t the intent of librettist Antonio Lucchini.

But Vivaldi’s music helps you overlook the problems with the story. As in his concertos, the composer finds seemingly infinite variety within the strict formulas of Baroque opera, and his writing, for both voices and orchestra, conveys drama and atmosphere magnificently. The exuberance of military victory; the heartbreak of a father’s grief when he believes his child is dead; and the exquisite longing of an unfulfilled lover; all of these situations and many more are vividly realized in the score.

Augusta Caso performs the role of Gilade in Vivaldi’s Farnace at the Spoleto Festival, USA. Photo courtesy of Spoleto Festival USA/Leigh Webber Photography.

Every element of this production serves the opera beautifully, beginning with the exceptional cast. The audience is treated to the rare spectacle (in modern times, at any rate) of two counter-tenor roles: Anthony Roth Costanzo as Farnace, and Nicholas Tamagna as the Roman general Pompeo. Both sing with startling brilliance, and Costanzo manages the near impossible by making us care about Farnace in the heart-rending aria that closes the first act. As the warrior queen Berenice, contralto Kiera Duffy has a stage presence to match her commanding voice, and she masterfully utilizes the flowing headdress given her by costumer Terese Wadden. And soprano Augusta Caso is sensuous and touching in the role of Berenice’s captain Gilade (a role originally written for a male castrato singer, but in this staging turned unambiguously into a female character).

All of the singers act as well as they vocalize, and often do it while sitting, on their knees, and at one point in Farnace’s case, lying face down in grief. Stage director Garry Hynes arranges stunning tableau, and the set design by Francis O’Connor uses spare, simple elements to great effect. A lamp flown down from the above the stage creates Selinda’s prison cell in its shaft of light; a suspended portrait of Farnace draped in black evokes his monument; and the backdrop of an ocean receding into the horizon that’s visible throughout the performance captures as many shades and colors as Vivaldi’s music.

The Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra handles the particular demands of the Baroque score deftly under the direction of David Peter Bates, who conducts from the harpsichord. They fill the Dock Street Theater with sound when necessary, but never overpower the singers, and at other times quiet to a thrilling hush that lets the voices shine with subtler emotions.

Farnace has four more performance during the festival on June 2^nd, 5^th , 7^th and 9^th. Details are at spoletousa.org.

Regrettably, the presentation by the Maria Pagés Company performed on only two consecutive days early in the festival. But if you ever come across this ensemble again, it will be well worth your while to catch it.

Flamenco luminary María Pagés brings her work, Yo, Carmen, to the Gaillard Center on May 27 and 28, 2017. Photo courtesy of Spoleto Festival USA/Davind Ruano

Their program Yo, Carmen – “I, Carmen” – is an ode to womanhood in the fiery language of the flamenco music and dance of the Spanish gypsies. The character from Bizet’s opera (and some of the more familiar parts of its score) serve as reference points for a series of dance vignettes that also employ poetry, song and even a quasi-rap, “Todas las mujeres” – “All the Women.” The production is at once authentic and sophisticated, with the traditional aspects of flamenco blended with elements of modern dance and performance art. The meticulously designed and executed choreography is viscerally stimulating and visually stunning. It’s a shame it couldn’t have a longer run at the festival.

Make sure you receive each episode of our WDAV Dispatch from Spoleto podcast automatically to your computer or smartphone, visit the WDAV Dispatch from Spoleto page to subscribe.