REVIEW: Hartford Fringe Festival, Notes on Me and You

Hartford Fringe Festival
www.hartfordfringefestival.org
through November 9, 2020
by Michael J. Moran

Billed as a “new one-man musical” and a “visual album,” “Notes” is one of over twenty pre-recorded virtual productions being presented by the second annual Hartford Fringe Festival via streaming access for thirty days. 

With music by Dawson Atkin and lyrics by N. J. Collay, the show features Sam Vana singing and playing acoustic guitar, or accompanied by Atkin on off-camera piano, through most of its 42-minute length. Vana portrays an unnamed man who chronicles the illness and death of his life partner from HIV/AIDS in the late 1980s. Atkin and Vana are Hartt School students at the University of Hartford; Collay attends Brandeis University.

Documentary film footage of period demonstrations to support AIDS victims and funding for a cure are interspersed at several points. The only set is Vana sitting on a stool with additional backdrops of hand-drawn art. The production is directed and edited by Atkin.

“Notes” is not so much a traditional musical as a song cycle in the style of Adam Guettel’s “Myths and Hymns” or William Finn’s “Elegies.” Though it lacks the power and polish of those mature predecessors, “Notes” shows considerable promise that its young creative team have the talent to reach similar heights in the future.

The show’s modest production values strengthen its impact. While sometimes hampering his microphone access, Vana’s Covid face shield also connects his viewers during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic with the firsthand experience of his character thirty years earlier. And the use of pre-existing film both relieves the claustrophobic stage set and lifts the performer’s personal anguish to the broader level of redemptive social action.

Atkin’s music varies from soft and contemplative, through grief stricken and disconsolate, to rousing and galvanizing. A quiet instrumental interlude featuring piano and guitar is particularly poignant. Collay’s lyrics follow the musical arc with simple eloquence, repeating phrases like “you and me in perpetual motion” and “I’m still reaching for the dead” which become mantras. Vana’s appealing openness captures the full range of his character’s moods, from despair to cautious hope.

Oh, the Places We Planned to Go: Arrowhead and Hancock Shaker Village

By Shera Cohen

The title paraphrases a line from Dr. Seuss. He did not realize, nor did he care, that his jolly little sentence described the unexpected disruption of what would have been my 25th straight summer in the Berkshires. I am sure that I have written most of those 24 articles for myself rather than for the readers. I guess that makes me a selfish writer. However, my senior year high school English teacher stressed to her classes, “Write what you know.”

I imagine that many of us, humans using many different languages all in the same dilemma on this planet, have been writing their own versions of what we know. Their own stories about life in the pandemic and its affects is unique to each. Some are or will be best-sellers and others will be pithy tales of daily life.

Discontented Covid 19 quarantiners (I imagine that would all of us) mumble, “I’ll learn to play chess or knitting; that’s really popular now. I should read that book someday.” The more ambitious might blurt out, “Now’s the time to write my book.”

As for my own plans, the focus of my 25th article, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation in the Berkshires,” would have focused on historic homes of the rich and/or famous (note that the famous were not necessarily rich, and vice versa). Prompted by Carole Owens’ book “The Berkshire Cottages” [College Press, 1984] I planned my vacation using Ms. Owens work as a roadmap. I would never get through one-half of the venues cited in her book, but I set out on my journey with destinations marked within the author’s geographical area. This felt good: step #1 is complete.

Next step: to ask venue directors or board presidents if I might visit their sites to include information about their programming and history in my full article and as well as several sidebars. Nearly everyone eagerly said “Yes” to my request.

Stop! Hold the press! Covid 19 makes front page news. Well, now it’s called “Breaking News” on every television network, and thousands of Facebook posts. Those of us over age 40 will have heard the phrase, “Hold the press.”

I recently read an article on-line about the woes of museum personnel. With no one in attendance, there is nothing to program, and no sites to see. The performing arts are in a worse place. At least museums and museum-historic homes still had their venues, even though none of their thousands of visitors were able to enter.

I was determined to write some sort of article about summer in the Berkshires. I would be glad for something cultural than nothing. The doors started to open in late-June, very slowly at first, but enough for me to return to my abbreviated Summer in the Berkshires Plan. Because museums have the advantage of admitting a limited about of patrons at one time, could space them out, and cut out programs involving close-contact, Year #25 was to become my “ Journeys to Berkshires Museums.”

It’s not like there aren’t enough art and cultural sites to attend. Also, at least 10 former homes-turned-art venues pack the pages of Ms. Owens’ book. A bonus was that some museums offer both indoor and outdoor event participation; the latter usually being safer during this Covid era.

I am by no means advocating or giving permission to readers to attend any all of Ms. Owens’ selected Berkshire cottages. These are decisions only you can make. I decided, with some other In the Spotlight writers, to take the risk. A few writers trekked out on their own. Our past articles have included stories on:  Naumkeag Museum & Gardens, Norman Rockwell Museum, Chesterwood, Mission House, Edith Wharton’s The Mount, Bidwell House, Frelinghuysen Morris House. We hadn’t yet broached our requests to visit: Berkshire Botanical Museum, Colonel John Ashley Home, the Friends of du Bois Homestead, and Nathaniel Hawthorn’s summer house.

Last week’s journey took us to Pittsfield: Hancock Shaker Village and Arrowhead. I have learned only recently that I do myself and ITS readers an injustice by writing notes from the tour guides talk, taking excerpts from brochures, and photos. I abandoned my notebook and pen, and simply enjoyed the experience. What a novel idea is, of course!  My Pittsfield mini-vacation would be atypical from my notes and lessons. We would just go for the fun of it.

Herman Melville’s Arrowhead was off the main street in Pittsfield in the middle nowhere. You could easily drive by it. Docents can make or break the tour. Ours was a woman who knew Melville’s life, family, writing, careers, architecture of the house, and some unsubstantiated personal stories. All these years, I had thought that the name Arrowhead referred to the spear-end of a harpoon. Not at all. When Melville and his large, extended family purchased the property, he tilled the soil as any good farmer would. There, in the dirt and muck, he found a  plethora of arrowheads, left from American Indian tribes a century of two prior.

I highly recommend visiting Arrowhead, both the indoor home and surroundings. Having read “Moby Dick” is optional. I cheated in high school, reading only the first several chapters. I opted for the Gregory Peck movie. Interesting about the impetus for his novel was Melville’s view from his porch of the large expense of Mt. Greylock; a perfect image of a giant whale. Unfortunately, Melville’s epic never brought him favor; it was a posthumous success.

Hancock Shaker Village deserves more time than we were able to give. The property is acres and acres of what was once farmland. Spotted throughout were dormitories, church, tool houses, and large dining room/kitchen. While many would disagree with me, think of the Shaker life as that of Quakers. Shaker communities are sparce, religious, help their brethren, and share the success of an individual. The Village had no tour guides, but a character dressed in appropriate garb of the times told us about each building as we entered. Life was segregated; men and women never ate together and praying together was unheard of. It is hard to imagine, yet understandable under the circumstances that in 2020, only three Shakers live in the U.S. One middle-age man is the sole resident of the Shaker Village in Maine.

Neither Arrowhead, www.mobydick.org, nor Hancock Shaker Village, https://hancockshakervillage.org, permanently close, even in the winter. Special events take place, especially focusing on music. Check the Shaker website to register for a genuine Shaker dinner. It won’t be fine cuisine, but it will be authentic.

REVIEW: Barrington Stage Company, Three Viewings (Virtual Reading)

Barrington Stage Company, Pittsfield, MA

www.barringtonstageco.org

September 23 through September 27

By Jarice Hanson

In an effort to engage with, and bring quality entertainment to audiences, Barrington Stage has been streaming works that bow to Covid-19 regulations.  In “Three Viewings” by Jeffrey Hatcher, the talents of an outstanding playwright and three charismatic actors fill the bill.  Hatcher’s three monologs have a common theme.  All take place in a Midwestern funeral home which might suggest decorum, but each actor uses direct address with the viewer to create an intimate, hilarious relationship.

Kirkwood Smith is delightfully smarmy as a mild-mannered undertaker with a passion for the local real estate broker in "Tell-Tale." Angel Desai performs "The Thief of Tears" about a woman who is committed to getting the jewelry she was promised as a child from her dead grandmother.  Finally, the wonderful Debra Jo Rupp gives a funny, but poignant performance in "Thirteen Things About Ed Carpoletti," in which she plays a new widow who finds out her late husband has left her in debt to the bank and the mob.  Each of these actors is brilliant in expressing the comedy and pathos of the monologs, without audience feedback to fuel those performances. Julianne Boyd directs all three pieces and guides her actors in pacing and delivery so that the audience sees three very different individuals who complement each other as believable characters. It should also be noted that Mr. Smith and Ms. Rupp have a long relationship as the Red and Kitty Forman in the television sitcom "That '70s Show."

Hatcher’s script was published in 1996, but the content is timeless. In Barrington Stage’s decision to mount “Three Viewings” with these three actors, the company has hit the mark with seasoned professionals who are as comfortable on the big stage as they are in the intimate rectangle of a television or computer screen. There are many laugh out loud moments and the production does provide a certain satisfaction of watching quality work that is often missing in trying to stage theatrical events for streaming purposes.

Barrington Stage offered the show for a donation of $25 or more, and streaming was available for 96 hours.  Though the experience of the show was not as invigorating as seeing the productions live, the laughter it provided at this time in history was well worth the modest donation, and once again, Barrington Stage shows how quality productions in a variety of venues and formats.

REVIEW: Tanglewood 2020 Online Festival, ITS Presents the "Lenny Awards"

Tanglewood 2020 Online Festival

www.bso.org

July 1 – August 23, 2020

by Michael J. Moran

With 78 programs in eight weeks now concluded, it’s time to look back at the Tanglewood 2020 Online Festival and present what In the Spotlight is calling the "Lenny Awards", named in honor of Tanglewood’s favorite son, composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein, for excellence in the following categories:

Seiji Ozawa

Best “Boston Symphony Orchestra Encore Performance from Tanglewood:” Facing strong competition from a thrilling Shostakovich tenth symphony and a sweeping Mahler third, both under current BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons, the Lenny Award goes to Seiji Ozawa’s emotional 2002 farewell concert, with a buoyant Berlioz “Symphonie Fantastique,” a rare Beethoven “Choral Fantasy,” and a touching audience-participation finale, Randall Thompson’s “Alleluia.”

Best “Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra Encore Performance:” Despite a lovely conductor-less Tchaikovsky  “Serenade for Strings” and stirring accounts under Thomas Ades of his own “Asyla” and Lutoslawski’s third symphony, the Lenny Award goes to Andris Nelsons for the dramatic reading he led of Act III from Wagner’s “Die Walkure,” featuring soprano Christine Goerke as a searing Brunnhilde. 

Best “BSO Musicians in Concert from Tanglewood” Program: Since each of these seven programs, all recorded without audience this summer in Studio E of the Linde Center for Music and Learning at Tanglewood, beautifully showcased different sections of the orchestra in imaginative repertory selections, the Lenny Award goes to the entire Boston Symphony Orchestra. 

Best “Great Performers in Recital from Tanglewood” Program: Even up against such formidable competition (also recorded audience-free this summer in Studio E) as revelatory Bach from pianist Daniil Trifonov and powerful Beethoven from violinist Joshua Bell with pianist Jeremy Denk, the Lenny Award goes to pianist Conrad Tao for a boldly inventive program that surrounded Beethoven’s “Tempest” sonata with modern experimental pieces which made it also sound new again.

Best “Recitals from the World Stage” Program: This series featured vibrant Shostakovich by the Danish String Quartet from Copenhagen and towering Beethoven by pianist Garrick Ohlsson from San Francisco, but the Lenny Award goes to the multinational Silkroad Ensemble for a stunning concert with their new artistic director, Rhiannon Giddens.

Best “TMC Chamber Concert” (audio): In spite of challenges from two programs featuring string quartets and wind instruments, the Lenny Award goes to the episode showcasing TMC vocal fellows for their virtuoso performances of an extremely broad repertoire, including several recent commissions by TMC composition fellows.  

Stephanie Blythe

Best Tanglewood Learning Institute MasterClass: Even with stiff competition from Midori’s sensitive tutoring of high-school-aged Boston University Tanglewood Institute violinists and from Dawn Upshaw’s empathetic coaching of Tanglewood Festival Chorus sopranos, the Lenny Award goes to mezzo-soprano and TMC faculty member Stephanie Blythe for her matchless verve and magnetic stage presence in working with TMC vocal fellows on Broadway repertoire. 

Best TLI ShopTalk: With two strong runner-up panels featuring saxophonist James Carter with composer Roberto Sierra and composers Gabriela Lena Frank and Augusta Read Thomas, the Lenny Award goes to conductors JoAnn Falletta and Thomas Wilkins, for firsthand stories of their respective pioneering careers as female and African American conductors.

Best TLI Forum Program: Though all three programs in each series offered new perspectives on “The Roaring Twenties” and “The Romantic Spirit,” the Lenny Award goes to pianist Tom Beghin for his fascinating research into the special piano on which the deaf Beethoven “heard” his new music in “Inside the Hearing Machine,” which kicked off the wide-ranging “TLI Celebrates Beethoven” series. 

Sue Elliott

Best Series Host: Berkshire resident Karen Allen was cordial; TMC vocal alum Lauren Ambrose was charming; frequent Tanglewood guest soprano Nicole Cabell was classy; and “famous father girl” Jamie Bernstein was wryly effusive; but the Lenny Award goes to indefatigable TLI Director Sue Elliott, who hosted all TLI programs and moderated all TLI panels, and whose lively and engaging manner drew insightful comments from all her many interviewees.  

Lenny Lifetime Achievement Award: This award goes to Ludwig van Beethoven, the 250th anniversary of whose birth was extensively observed in both musical and educational programming throughout the season. 

Special Lenny Award: This award goes to BSO President and CEO Mark Volpe for his 23 years of distinguished service in this position before he retires next year and for opening the Tanglewood grounds for free within Covid-19 guidelines to the general public three days per week this summer.

REVIEW: Berkshire Opera Festival 2020

Great Barrington, MA

www.berkshireoperafestival.org

through September 4, 2020

by Michael J. Moran

Forced by Covid-19 to cancel the fully staged production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” with which they had planned to celebrate their fifth anniversary this year, the Berkshire Opera Festival pivoted, like Tanglewood, to a virtual alternative. Instead of three live performances in Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre, they are presenting an hour-long concert video stream, with selections recorded mask less but distanced in various locations, by the opera’s principal cast members, which will stay available on their web site through September 4 at 8:30 pm.

Joanna Latini

Hosted by BOF co-founders, Artistic Director Brian Garman and Director of Productions Jonathon Loy, the program opens with a stunningly dramatic account by soprano Joanna Latini of Donna Elvira’s aria of rage, “Mi tradi,” after her betrayal by the title scoundrel in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” She is brilliantly accompanied by BOF staff pianist Christopher Koelzer on the acoustically friendly stage of St. James Place, the company’s home in Great Barrington. Multiple camera angles filmed by Pittsfield Community Television capture Latini’s total immersion in the role through gestures and facial expressions.

Joshua Blue

Bass-baritone Andre Courville next accompanies himself on piano at his Louisiana home in a ravishing rendition of Count Rodolfo’s aria of regret, “Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni,” from Bellini’s “La Somnambula.” Tenor Joshua Blue then sings a fervent “Che gelida manina,” as Rodolfo meets Mimi, in Puccini’s “La Boheme,” at St. James Place with Koelzer. He’s followed by soprano Laura Wilde at her Chicago home, with pianist Pedro Yanez, in a powerful “Du bist der Lenz,” Sieglinde’s love song to Siegfried, from Wagner’s “Die Walkure.”

Berkshires resident and bass-baritone John Cheek, with Koelzer at St. James Place, is a visual and vocal hoot in “O wie will ich triumphieren,” Osmin’s aria of comic vengeance, from Mozart’s “The Abduction from the Seraglio.” Even at age 72, Cheek’s sepulchral voice still sounds agelessly agile. Next, from her home in Puerto Rico with pianist Ernesto Busigo, soprano Natalia Santaliz sings a radiant “De Espana vengo,” a love song to Spain, from Pablo Luna’s  zarzuela “El Nino Judio.”

Baritone Brian James Myer, at his Philadelphia home with pianist Michael Sherman, is lush and elegant in Pierrot’s wistful aria, “Mein Sehnen, mein Wahnen,” from Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt.” Bass Erik Anstine, from his home in New York City with pianist Carol Wong, is robust and virile as Emile in “Some Enchanted Evening,” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific.” The concert ends quite literally on a rapturous high note as Latini and Blue reunite with Koelzer at St. James Place in Puccini’s ardent love duet “O soave fanciulla” from “La Boheme.”

New York’s Metropolitan Opera may have set the template for virtual benefit concerts like this one with its April 25 At-Home Gala. In that context this BOF event measures up admirably, boasting the same high professional standards of performance and production, with the same variable acoustics from some remote sites. Area opera fans should check out this impressive musical tribute to an invaluable local resource while they can.   

REVIEW: Tanglewood 2020 Online Festival, Week Eight

Tanglewood 2020 Online Festival

www.bso.org

August 17-23, 2020

by Michael J. Moran

For the eighth and closing week of its virtual 2020 season, Tanglewood scaled back its video streams slightly from the busy prior week to two educational programs and six concerts.

Dawn Upshaw

In the Tanglewood Learning Institute’s Wednesday afternoon masterclass, soprano Dawn Upshaw, Head of the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Arts Program, helped four soprano members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus find and give voice to all the “different colors [and] layers of expression” in songs by Beach, Kernis, Strauss, and Debussy. In a follow-up Zoom chat with TLI Director Sue Elliott, Upshaw reiterated the importance of clear diction in all languages and repertoire for TMC vocal students with her trademark warmth and good humor. 

On Thursday’s “TLI ShopTalks” episode, Elliott Zoom-interviewed Keith Lockhart on his 25 years as Boston Pops Conductor and Gus Sebring, Boston Symphony Orchestra assistant principal horn, on his 39 years of experience in the Pops and the BSO. Avowed “musical omnivores,” they agreed on the core Pops mission to reflect tradition and contemporary styles with “no boundaries.” In sharing unforgettable career moments, both recalled a second-balcony “fist fight” that once interrupted a Pops concert in Symphony Hall.

Monday evening’s TMC orchestra concert consisted entirely of a powerful 2019 account of the third and final act of Wagner’s opera “Die Walkure,” led by BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons. In a pre-concert interview with BSO artistic administrator Tony Fogg and soprano Christine Goerke, Nelsons stressed the value to these young musicians of this rare opportunity to perform a complete opera (the other two acts were presented in separate concerts) with professional singers. Goerke was magnificent as Brunnhilde, one of her signature roles.

The annual “Tanglewood on Parade” concert presents members of all the festival’s resident ensembles, and Tuesday evening’s video stream featured highlights from several recent “Parades.” Genially hosted by Tanglewood megastar James Taylor, who also sang memorably with the TFC, the program included several delightful excerpts from James Burton’s “The Lost Words,” charmingly sung by the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir under the composer (who also directs the TFC), and ended with the traditional Parade closer, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” with an expanded orchestra stirringly conducted by Nelsons.

On Wednesday evening, frequent Tanglewood guest pianist Garrick Ohlsson played vibrant renditions of two Beethoven piano sonatas in an audience-free hall at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His eloquent spoken introductions clarified how the brief but sparkling 24th and the mammoth 29th (nicknamed the “Hammerklavier”) sonatas fit into the composer’s complete cycle of thirty-two piano sonatas. 

Like Wednesday’s masterclass, the Friday and Saturday evening concerts were recorded this summer without audience in Studio E of the Linde Center for Music and Learning at Tanglewood. Violinist Julianne Lee was the star of Friday’s concert, in which she was joined by other BSO string players in a buoyant Mozart duo and a heartfelt Schubert “Rosamunde” quartet, bookending Lee’s whirlwind reading of Daniel Bernard Roumain’s 2001 “Filter” for solo violin.

Joshua Bell

On Saturday, superstar violinist Joshua Bell (who, according to host Nicole Cabell, holds the record among guest artists for the most consecutive annual appearances at Tanglewood – since 1989) and his longtime recital partner, pianist Jeremy Denk, were electrifying in the two greatest of Beethoven’s ten violin and piano sonatas: the fifth (“Spring”) and ninth (“Kreutzer”) sonatas.

Sunday afternoon’s video stream brought the season-long focus on Beethoven’s 250th birthday anniversary to a climax with 2019’s dramatic performance under frequent BSO guest conductor Giancarlo Guerrero of the traditional closer for every Tanglewood season: Beethoven’s ninth symphony. Along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, celebrating their own 50th anniversary this year, the “choral” finale, setting Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” boasted an outstanding quartet of diverse American soloists: soprano Nicole Cabell; mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges; tenor Nicholas Phan; and bass Morris Robinson.   

Most of these programs are free and will stay online at www.bso.org for a week or more after the dates above.

On the Road: Liza Donnelly Work Showcased at NRM

Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA
www.nrm.org
by Shera Cohen

Like the rest of the population on our planet, I had to figure out a reasonable and safe summer vacation for myself. Also, after 25 years of writing “What I Did on My Summer Vacation in the Berkshires,” maybe it was about time to take somewhat of a different journey as well as approach to my articles.

With no theatre, music, and/or dance to attend, I felt abandoned. I cannot imagine how the actors, musicians, dancers, and all of the many behind-the-scenes talent, now jobless and forlorn, felt. How could l help this urgent overwhelming experience besides echoing the words of others (“Things will be better next year.”), making small donations when I could, and using In the Spotlight as a forum that art is not dead, nor is the Berkshires?

Liza Donnelly, copyright 2002

However, as Covid-19 lessened to some degree and doors literally began to open, art and the Berkshires were not as dim as they had seemed. I looked around. Museums were still there, right where I left them. Historic homes, too. With agonizing planning and implementation of staff, and every minutia of preparation acceptable to government health standards, summer could survive. Please refer to www.inthespotlightinc.org to read about the many opportunities that our writers have.

Last weekend, I traveled to Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge. The property includes a large white museum filled with Rockwell originals, a pristine landscape, a workshop/cottage, and scattered whimsical sculptures disbursed. The latter are art pieces created by one of Norman’s sons.

Each summer, I try to focus on the touring exhibit by a guest artist. This year, the works of cartoonist Liza Donnelly’s were a delight. I hadn’t really thought of cartooning as an art form. However, seeing the prolific drawings that filled the large main gallery, taught me that Ms. Donnelly is not only one who can draw, yet at the same time write dialog; two talents that come together, seemingly with ease. Probably few Spotlight readers have heard of Liza Donnelly, but trust me, you have seen her cartoons, particularly in  The New York Times, probably at the dentist’s office.

I have a friend of many years who is a professional cartoonist. What a fun job that must be, I always think. Chris Allard, of Springfield, whose art has been seen on PBS and throughout the United States, told me “I see cartooning as an expression of humor.” Liza Donnelly, who I have never met, says, “Cartoons are a dialogue—a sharing of humor and a sharing of the human condition.”

Observing Chris’ skills over the course of several years gave me somewhat of a base to view Ms. Donnelly’s cartoons. By no means am I a critic of this genre; if the little story is whimsical and clear, I am a happy with what I see. One of Chris’ ersatz mentors was Charles Addams, creator of the New Yorker cartoons. Maybe a model of some of Chris’ style echoes Donnelly’s own New Yorker drawings?

Liza Donnelly, copyright 2004

Donnelly’s curated exhibit includes a handwritten letter by a young Liza to Charles Schultz, of “Peanuts” fame. Little Ms. Donnelly must have been thrilled to read Schultz’ own handwritten letter. Not quoting directly, the famous cartoonist praised Liza’s talent, encouraging her to keep up the good work. That she did. And, Norman Rockwell Museum gives visitors an opportunity to chuckle, laugh out loud, or smile.

This exhibit ends in mid-September. Reservations by phone or online must be made prior. Only 17 visitors are permitted in any one gallery at a time. Please adhere to the museum’s simple rules. Friendly staff are stationed throughout the museum to answer questions. By the way, NRM’s store is one of the biggest, most diverse in the Berkshires. Check the website at www.nrm.org or call 413-298-4100.