Tanglewood concert reviews

Andris Nelsons conducts Acts I and II of Verdi’s Aida at Tanglewood

August 20, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

BSO Music director Andris Nelsons conducted Verdi’s Aida, Acts I & II at Tanglewood, in the Koussevitsky Music Shed on Aug. 20, 2016, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, soloists Kristine Opolais, Violeta Urmana, Andrea Carè, Alfredo Nigro, Franco Vassallo, Morris Robinson, Kwangchul Youn, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, leading a performance that was as beautiful as any we’ve ever heard.

We knew, going in, that it would be an exciting concert, given the venue, program, and the artists involved (especially the always-awesome Tanglewood Fetival Chorus), but never expected to be so thouroughly engaged and stimulated that we felt a pang of sadness as it came to a close. Of course, to an opera aficionado, the end of this performance would’ve only marked the midway point of Aida, which consists of four Acts.

Aida is about conflict bertween Egypt and Ethiopia

Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the BSO and soprano Kristine Opolais in Verdi's Aida at Tanglewood, Aug. 20, 2016; Hilary Scott photo. — Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the BSO and soprano Kristine Opolais in Verdi’s Aida at Tanglewood, Aug. 20, 2016; Hilary Scott photo.

My interest in the libretto extended only to its role distributing parts to the soloists and the TFC, so they could produce the singing that was so perfectly married to the instrumental score. I did keep up with the English supertitles – because they were there and impossible to ignore, but would’ve been happy without them. They alone wouldn’t tell you enough of the backstory for the plot to be particularly meaningful, except that there was some brouhaha between Egypt and Ethiopia. Regardless the righteousness of either side’s cause, however, the King, as portrayed by bass Morris Robinson, was so compelling in Act 1 that I went looking for where to enlist in his army during intermission.

And you may be aware that soprano Kristine Opolais, who sang Aida tonight, is married to Maestro Nelsons; banish the thought that there’s any nepotism involved with this casting, as she totally rocked the role! Since the operatic lexicon is beyond my ken, suffice it to say all of the soloists sang beautifully, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, led tonight by guest conductor James Burton, was spectacular, not missing a beat since the retirement last season of founding conductor John Oliver.

About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels

Tickets for the 2016 Tanglewood season, $12-$124, go on sale January 24 starting at 10 a.m. through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA. Tanglewood brochures with complete programs and information on how to order tickets will be available in early February by calling 617-638-9467. For further information, please call the Boston Symphony Orchestra at 617-266-1492 or visit www.tanglewood.org. 2016 Tanglewood schedule – PDF.

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Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Kristine Opolais, soprano (Aida)
Violeta Urmana, mezzo-soprano (Amneris)^^
Andrea Carè, tenor (Radames)^^
Alfredo Nigro, tenor (Messenger)^^
Franco Vassallo, baritone (Amonasro)^^
Morris Robinson, bass (The King)
Kwangchul Youn, bass (Ramfis)^
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
VERDI Aida, Acts I and II
Sung in Italian with English supertitles
^Tanglewood debut – ^^BSO and Tanglewood debuts

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

The Tanglewood campus, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center comprises several hundred acres in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge. It is the location of the Koussevitsky Music Shed and Ozawa Hall, where hundreds of thousands attend concerts and a variety of events, including picnics. We always advise new visitors to arrive early and take their daily walking exercise wandering the beautiful Tanglewood grounds.

Here is a dynamic map of the Tanglewood grounds, with photos and information for such points of interest as Aaron Copland Library, Highwood Manor House, The Glass House, and The Lion’s Gate.

2016 Tanglewood on Parade

August 2, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

2016 Tanglewood on Parade gala concert included four guest conductors, Stefan Asbury, Stephane Denave, Ken-David Masur, and Giancarlo Guerrero besides Boston Pops Conductor Laureate John Williams, who also is a composer of movie scores, including Star Wars, an excerpt of which was on tonight’s program. Even though March of the Resistance, from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was just a small part of the program, it is noteworthy because George Shultz was in the audience. He was secretary of state during the Reagan administration, who’s Strategic Defense Initiative was nicknamed Star Wars, following the runaway success of the original movie in 1977.

The format for this program differs from every other BSO concert on the Tanglewood schedule. There are always more orchestras and more conductors leading the musicians in more musical selections. What remains static year after year is the presence of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, each presenting a segemnt of the program and then all massing for the grand finale performance of the 1812 Overture, Tchaikovsky’s celebration of the defeat of Napolean’s army, which always blows the roof off the joint! Maestro Giancarlo Guerrero, music director of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and native of armed-forces-free Costa Rica, was the aptly named choice to conduct the 1812 Overture, and he succeeded brilliantly in unifying the 140 or so musicians into one triumphant orchestra.

Returning to lead the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra was Stephane Deneve, chief conductor of the Stutgart Radio Symphony and Brussels Philoharmonic, who can be heard here talking about working with the Tanglewood Music Center fellows – “…each year it is a different orchestra, but every year they seem to get better…” – and about La Valse, Ravel’s choreographic poem which he conducted tonight. The performance was spell-binding; hard to believe the orchestra was convened little more than a month ago, and wistful to know that it will disband later this month!

Opening the concert was Stefan Asbury, head of the TMC conducting program, with the BSO performing Night Train to Perugia, by Michael Gandolphi, who was called to the podium afterwards to share in the audience’s warm reception to the orchestra’s performance of his work. Next, Ken-David Masur, BSO assistant conductor, led a reduced orchestra and soloists Elizabeth Rowe on flute and Jessica Zhou on harp in a sublime performance of Mozart’s Concerto in C for Flute and Harp.

And in addition to the Star Wars piece, John Williams led the Boston Pops in the world premiere of Of Grace and Majesty, Suite from The BFG, before yielding the podium to Maestro Guerrero.

About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

Chick Corea Trio at Tanglewood

July 31, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Lenox, MA – The Chick Corea Trio, with Christian McBride on bass and Brian Blade on drums, performed a thrilling set of hyphen-free jazz before a capacity audience in Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, bringing to a close one segment of a year-long 75th birthday celebration by the NEA Jazz Master, who was born June 12, 1941 in Chelsea, MA. Mr. Corea will conclude the celebration with an unprecedented eight week stint at New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club between October 19 and December 12, when he’ll perform with more than a dozen bands, including versions of Return to Forever: an acoustic combo with Hubert Laws on flute and Ravi Coltrane on tenor saxophone, and a fusion powerhouse with John McLaughlin on guitar, Victor Wooten on bass and Lenny White on drums.

The Chick Corea Trio, with Christian McBride and Brian Blade at Tanglewood July 31, 2016; Hilary Scott photo.

Tonight’s setlist was drawn from Trilogy, the widely acclaimed 2014 album of popular Chick Corea compositions, previously unreleased material, plus an array of jazz standards. Besides Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell, Corea also paid tribute to Miles Davis, in whose employ he burst upon the scene in the late ’60s, a musician whose stagecraft was diametrically opposed to Corea’s, a most relaxed and affable artist who opened and closed tonight’s show engaged in dialogue with an impromptu Tanglewood chorus that he drew into the performance.

Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Bud Powell, Thelonius Monk

Davis’ On Green Dolphin Street and All Blues, were highlights of the concert, along with Alice in Wonderland, which he dedicated to pianist Bill Evans, because “when he played it he owned it, even though he didn’t write it.”

About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

Andris Nelsons leads BSO and violinist Augustin Hadelich at Tanglewood

July 30, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Lenox, MA – Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Music Shed was full on a rainy Saturday night for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s program of Corigliano, Sibelius, and Beethoven, conducted by music director Andris Nelsons, and featuring violinist Augustin Hadelich. Mr. Hadelich, whose recovery in his mid-teens from severe burns is as heroic as his subsequent musical accomplishments are impressive, was afforded the rare honor of an encore following his thrilling performance of the Sibelius Violin concerto.

BSO program of Corigliano, Sibelius, and Beethoven

Composer John Corigilano bows after BSO performance of his Fantasia on an Ostinato at Tanglewood, July 30, 2016; Hilary Scott photo.

Another rarity tonight was the appearance of John Corigliano, called to the podium after the opening performance of his composition, Fantasia on an Ostinato, which is based on the famous repetitive passage from the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, which concluded the performance and spread happiness throughout the departing audience.

Since the rudiments of musicianship are beyond my ken, attending a symphonic concert often means concentrating on the conductor, while the music washes over me. Tonight, Maestro Nelsons was as entertaining to me as he must’ve been elucidating to the orchestra, they played so beautifully. His immedite predecessors had great success too, but the way James Levine and Seiji Ozawa occupied the podium bears no resemblance to the way Andris Nelsons does, who’s peripatetic conducting manner makes him a candidate for a Fitbit endorsement!

About Tanglewood: box office, tickets, getting there, nearby hotels

Getting around the Tanglewood campus

2016 – Garrison Keillor says goodbye to Tanglewood

By Dave Read, June 25, 2016 performance – The 17th and final broadcast from Tanglewood of A Prairie Home Companion, with Garrison Keillor, was a perfectly entertaining two hour live radio show for the enjoyment of millions of listeners worldwide wrapped in nearly another two hours of singing and storytelling around the Berkshires campfire. Some twenty minutes before airtime, Keillor and duets partner Heather Masse sauntered from the stage in the Koussevitsky Music Shed out onto the lawn, to serenade the massive audience, first with America the Beautiful and then with familiar, wistful songs that everybody loves to sing aloud.

Garrison Keillor and Heather Masse serenade Tanglewood audience before June 25, 2016 episode of A Prairie Home Companion; photo: Dave Read, BerkshireLinks.com.

Back on stage he introduced a story that he would flesh out during the broadcast and then return to three and a half hours later while bidding farewell to one of his favorite venues. It was about a trip last week to give a speech in Oslo, and during the broadcast he urges the audience to tell their European friends to come here first – to the Berkshires and towns like Lenox and Stockbridge, so that they can see America at its best. The show is available, whole or in segments, at prairiehome.com.

origin of A Prairie Home Companion

The last stroy he told here, more than an hour after the end of the broadcast, was the true story of how he named the show in remembrance of the Prairie Home Cemetery, founded by Nowegian Lutherans in Moorhead, MN, a gesture that seems to have established a permanent bond between the settlers of the Red River Valley and the characters who would populate Lake Wobegon. Besides a solid hour of impromptu singing with The DiGiallonardo Sisters and Heather Masse, with backing and a few solos from the band – music director Rich Dworsky on keyboards, Jonathan Dresel on drums, bassist Larry Kohut, Richard Kriehn on mandolin and fiddle, guitarist Chris Siebold and guest pianist and long-time Keillor associate Rob Fisher, Keillor also reached out to several front-row patrons, interviewing them to the delight of the audience, and also distributed about twenty copies of The Keillor Reader.

Bill Clinton on first and last Tanglewood A Prairie Home Companion shows

We got a kick out of the fact that Bill Clinton made an appearance on this show, just as he had the first A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood in 2000, when Tim Russell did an uncanny impersonation of President Clinton reciting Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone after Keillor had asked him, “How does it feel to be leaving the White House?” One of the funniest bits tonight came in the last segment, with Keillor on the phone telling his father that he was visiting Tanglewood for a few concerts, giving Russell the opportunity to voice the father doing an impersonation of Brian Wilson singing, because he’s heard he’d just performed here. (Our review).

favorites from A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood

We attended every episode of A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood except for the one in 2007, when we were drawn instead to the Bob Dylan show at Bethel Woods. Thirty two hours of live broadcast and half again as many hours of after-show fun add up quite a trove of fond memories, such as Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers performing the Orange Blossom Special after the 2009 show. (Watch it here)

Garrison Keillor introduces the Berkshire Highlanders during the first broadcast of A Prairie Home Compabion at Tanglewood, July 2, 2000. photo: Dave Read.

Perhaps the greatest and most endearing spectacle was the appearance on the first show of the Berkshire Highlanders, including their parade through the ailses of the Shed. We’ve also been introduced to many wonderful artists and musical acts during the show’s 42 year history, such as Robin and Linda Williams, as well as the stunning Inga Swearingen, whose Tanglewood appearances included the 2008 show, which also featured U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall, with whom we since become acquainted, making 3 visits to his home at Eagle Pond Farm in NH. Hall and his wife Jane Kenyon are featured regularly on The Writer’s Almanac, one of the projects that Mr. Keillor has said he now intends to spend more time on. Good luck with that, Garrison Keillor, and thanks for the memories.

Brian Wilson plays Pet Sounds at Tanglewood

June 19, 2016 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

Brian Wilson played Pet Sounds at Tanglewood, June 18, 2016, the second concert on the Popular Artist series at the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It took Mr. Wilson about three minutes to knock the cynicism out of me and by the end of this two and a half hour show, I was a true believer. As the concert loomed on my calendar, my plan was to disparage latter-day rock critics who rave about an album that was put away soon after it’s 1966 release. The various musical innovations of Brian Wilson that characterize Pet Sounds were either not noticed or simply lost on us who were bored by the AM radio sound and eager to bounce headlong into the realm of Cream’s Fresh Cream, Frank Zappa’s Freak Out, and Bob Dylan’s Blond on Blond, just to name 3 other 1966 albums.

Brian Wilson and Al Jardine perform Pet Sounds at Tanglewood, June 19, 2016. Photo: Dave Read, BerkshireLinks.com.

But this was a great show and by the end of the opening song, Heroes and Villians, we were won over by Mr. Wilson, as much for his simply charming stage presence as for his musical genius. The way things are today, even if your Crawdaddy subscription has lapsed, everybody knows all the crap Mr. Wilson has been through over 50+ years; the mere fact that he’s up and about is worthy of our admiration. When he left the stage some 34 songs later, though, he did so with our affection too, which we were happy to return. The show ended with Love and Mercy, his late ’80s song and pointed us in the direction of the 2014 movie about him bearing the same name, which he has described as a “very factual” representation of his life around the time of Pet Sounds.

Beach Boy Al Jardine was in the band, playing guitar a few feet away from Wilson, as was his son Matt, who took a couple turns singing falsetto parts that were an essential piece of the Beach Boys sound. Also on board for this tour is Blondie Chaplin, the South African singer and guitarist who first joined the Beach Boys in the 1970s and who did long stints with the Rolling Stones, too. First song of the seven encore numbers was Good Vibrations, recorded at the same time as Pet Sounds, but left off the album. It was given a pulsating reading today – they fairly blew the roof off the joint! Oh yeah, there was also Barbara Ann, Help Me Rhonda, Fun, Fun, Fun – it was a hell of a show, with one of the most exciting encores of all time!