Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Orchestre de Paris. Photo by Fadi Kheir.

 

At Stern Auditorium on the evening of Saturday, March 16th, I had the almost unsurpassable pleasure of attending a magnificent concert—presentedas a part of Carnegie Hall’s current festival, “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice”—featuring the superb musicians of the Orchestre de Paris, amazingly led by its energetic, almost impossibly dashing Music Director and Conductor, Klaus Mäkelä.

 

The program began marvelously with an outstanding performance of the complete score of Igor Stravinsky’s fabulous ballet, The Firebird, informatively described by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as follows:

 

The ballet is based on the Russian legend of the Firebird, a powerful good spirit whose feathers supposedly convey beauty and protection upon the earth. Other characters from Russian lore are also included: the heroic Prince Ivan Tsarevich and the evil sorcerer Kashchei, from whom Ivan must rescue the princess he loves. It is only through the intervention of the Firebird, whose life he spares early in the ballet, that Ivan is able to destroy Kashchei and his followers and marry the princess. The folk origins of the story inspired Stravinsky to borrow a few folk melodies in his score. Yet most of the ballet, especially the fluttering dance of the Firebird and the memorable wedding march at the ballet’s conclusion, was his own creation.

 

The brilliant Introduction and the opening episode, “Kashchei’s Enchanted Garden,” are hushed, unsettling and enigmatic, not unlike the “night music” in the scores of Béla Bartók. The entrance of the Firebird has a highly animated—even whirling—and unearthly, if playful, quality; the music becomes more hurried as the Prince proceeds to capture the Firebird, and more plaintive and fraught as it begs to be released. The “Emergence of the Thirteen Enchanted Princesses” is especially beguiling but the score becomes almost frantic as they play their game with the golden apples. As Prince Ivan appears, the music becomes serious and then exquisite in the more Impressionistic “The Princesses’ Khorovod.” At “Daybreak,” the score becomes turbulent, as Kashchei’s Monster-Guardians attack and capture the Prince, and then uncanny and suspenseful with “The Entrance of Kashchei the Immortal.” After the Firebird reappears, one of the most exciting sections is the dazzling “Infernal Dance of Kashchei and His Subjects under the Firebird’s Magic Spell”—which seems to be a precursor to the soundscape ofThe Rite of Spring—immediately preceding the magnificent “Lullaby,” which is probably the most astonishingly lovely episode in the entire ballet and was used as the score for Lewis Klahr’s incomparable film, Altair from 1995. The music becomes quieter as Kashchei awakens and then dies, which ushers in the enchanting Second Tableau that concludes the work triumphantly.

 

The second half of the event was equally exhilarating: a superlative rendition of the complete score of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which Britannica says “is considered one of the first examples of Modernism in music and is noted for its brutality, its barbaric rhythms, and its dissonance.” It notes that:

 

The piece was commissioned by the noted impresario of the Ballets Russes, Serge Diaghilev, who earlier had produced the young composer’sThe Firebird(1910) andPetrushka(1911). Stravinsky developed the story of The Rite of Spring, originally to be called The Great Sacrifice, with the aid of artist and mystic Nicholas Roerich, whose name appears with the composer’s on the title page of the earliest publications of the score. The production was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, and its sets and costumes were designed by Roerich.

 

Like Stravinsky’s earlier works for the Ballet Russes, The Rite of Spring was inspired by Russian culture, but, unlike them, it challenged the audience with its chaotic percussive momentum.

 

And adds:

 

In the mid-20th century, Stravinsky revised the orchestration for concert performance, and that version of the score remains the version that is most commonly performed. In 1987, however, the ballet as it was first conceived and performed, with original set and costumes and Nijinsky’s choreography (which had been seen for only seven performances before it was superseded by new choreography from Léonide Massine), was painstakingly reconstructed and re-created by the Joffrey Ballet. The centenary of the ballet’s premiere prompted other ballet companies, notably the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg, to also revive the work in its original form.

 

The eccentric “Introduction” to the First Part: Adoration of the Earth is haunting but the score quickly becomes rhythmically spellbinding with the ensuing “The Augurs of Spring: Dances of the Young Girls.” More turbulent is “The Ritual of Abduction” which leads to the solemn, portentous “Spring Rounds” and the tumultuous “Ritual of the Rival Tribes.” The intensity builds with the “Procession of the Sage” through the “Dance of the Earth” that closes the First Part.

 

After the mysterious “Introduction” to the Second Part: The Sacrifice, the episode that follows, “The Mystic Circles of the Young Girls,” has a more meditative character. The “Glorification of the Chosen One” is impassioned while the sense of foreboding increases especially in the propulsive “Ritual Action of the Ancestors,” climaxing with the stunning “Sacrificial Dance” that concludes the work.

 

The artists, who have commercially recorded both scores, were enthusiastically applauded.

At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, on the night of Saturday, March 9th, I had the incomparable pleasure of attending a magnificent concert presented by the outstanding musicians of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, brilliantly led by its Chief Conductor, Lahav Shani.

 

The evening began marvelously with a superb reading of Arvo Pärt’s stunning, meditative Swansong, a visionary work that concludes quietly. In an excellent program note, Jack Sullivan provides some useful background about it:

 

Composed in 2013, it was the result of a commission of the Mozart Week Festival in Salzburg—where Pärt was the festival composer in 2014—and was premiered by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Marc Minkowski. It is an orchestral version of Littlemore Tractus from 2000, which was composed for choir and organ to celebrate the 200th anniversary of cardinal John Henry Newman’s birth. That work is based on a fragment of Newman’s sermon “Wisdom and Innocence,” which contains a prayer for “a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.”

 

The fabulous soloist, Daniil Trifonov, then entered the stage for a sterling performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s wonderful 1777 Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, the “Jeunehomme.” The initial, appropriately cheerful and energetic Allegro movement has some slower, dance-like sections and features some sparkling piano writing. The Andantino that follows—a characteristically beautiful slow movement with an inward orientation—is seemingly almost religious in inspiration and evocative of the Baroque style at times—with some majestic passages—while the finale, a Rondo marked Presto, is propulsive and playful but contains a contrastingly reflective, almost melancholy, minuet. Enthusiastic applause was rewarded with an amazing encore played by the pianist: the Bill Evans arrangement of the classic song of 1952, "When I Fall in Love,” composed by Victor Young with lyrics by Edward Heyman, and famously recorded by Nat King Cole among many others.

 

Truly awesome, however, was the second half of the event, consisting of a stupendous realization of selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s glorious score for the ballet, Romeo and Juliet, some of the greatest music ever written. The enthralling march, “Montagues and Capulets” that opened the set has a lovely central interlude. “Juliet as a Young Girl,” the next selection, is effervescent and the ensuing “A Scene” is jocular. The ebullient “Dance” preceded the rhythmic “Masks” and the romantic “Balcony Scene.” After this was the exciting and dramatic “Death of Tybalt,” which also has comic elements. The charming “Dance of the Maids from the Antilles” is succeeded by the mesmerizing “Romeo and Juliet Before Parting” with its ominous inflections. The concluding “Romeo at Juliet’s Grave” is simply astounding. An ardent ovation elicited another delightful encore: the same composer’s March, Op. 99.

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

In the Australian Outback, Travis, a burned-out cop, arrives to look into the still unsolved case of a young Aboriginal girl’s murder two decades earlier—his presence dredges up old wounds and bad feelings for many of the locals.

 

 

In writer-director Ivan Sen’s impressive feature, the investigation is secondary to the character interactions: his moody B&W cinematography, in tantalizing shades of grey, mirrors the depths that Travis (a superb Simon Baker) goes to in his futile hope to find some closure.

 

 

 

Carol Doda Topless at the Condor 

Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker’s fascinating documentary sheds light on the life and times of the pioneering performer Carol Doda, who danced in San Francisco in the early ‘60s, helping to pave the way for more permissive rules and more daring artistic expression alongside other legends like comic Lenny Bruce.

 

 

With valuable archival interviews and footage interspersed with current talking heads who place Doda’s actions and the reactions to her in historical and social contexts, McKenzie and Parker have made an informative, enlightening look at a world that’s not as distant as it seems in our own era of closemindedness.

 

 

 

Club Zero 

Austrian director Jessica Hausner has always been provocative, and her latest film is no different: in an exclusive private school, Miss Novak arrives to teach students about responsible eating, which seems innocuous enough at first but it soon dominates their every breath to the point where their closest relationships are damaged and their very lives are endangered.

 

 

It’s too studied and obvious to be effective, since Hausner and cowriter Géraldine Bajard stack the deck from the start and provide no insight, just shock value (one of the students eats her own vomit). The sleepy performances contribute to the flatness, with even good actors like Sidse Babett Knudsen and Mia Wasikowska reduced to poses. Hausner’s clean, unfussy filmmaking works against her this time. 

 

House of Lust 

When 27-year-old Emma decides to moonlight as a prostitute in a high-class Parisian brothel in order to research a novel about sex workers that she’s planning to write, she finds herself in over her head as she must deal with being isolated from her family as well as her newly formed relationships with fellow workers and the complications of getting too intimate with the customers.

 

 

Director Anissa Bonnefont treads a thin line between exploration and exploitation, sometimes blurring it so she seems unsure what point she’s making. But Ana Girardot’s Emma is a resilient and persuasive center of an occasionally confused film.

 

 

 

Reckless Summer 

In French writer-director Rodolphe Tissot’s erotically charged character study, 15-year-old Solange—whose parents have just separated—discovers her own sexuality and how it affects the males in her life (including her heavy-metal loving former babysitter).

 

 

Solange is a precocious young heroine whose creator sometimes muddies the dramatic and psychological waters, but the sensational, openly raw performance by Louisiane Gouverneur makes the teenager worthy of our attention throughout.

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

French director Francois Ozon, who turns out films quickly like a Gallic Woody Allen, returns with a tongue-in-cheek drama about Madeleine, a struggling actress who uses her trial for killing an elderly letcher (she’s acquitted, thanks to Pauline, her close friend, roommate and struggling lawyer) as a springboard to fame and fortune on the stage and screen.

 

 

Ozon’s direction wavers between excessively campy and wittily on-target, and the large cast has a blast: Nadia Tereszkiewicz as Madeleine, Rebecca Marder as Pauline, Isabelle Huppert as a possible rival killer, Fabrice Luchini as an investigator and Andre Dussolier as Madeleine’s fiancée’s rich and unhappy father. The artificial settings look deliriously colorful on Blu; extras include a making-of featurette, interviews with Ozon, Marder and Tereszkiewicz, deleted scenes, and a blooper reel.

 

 

 

The Iron Claw 

Writer-director Sean Durkin’s solidly entertaining biopic of wrestler Kevin Von Erich and his cursed family—including all four of his brothers, three of whom also wrestled and all of whom died way too young—is also quite touching, even if it pushes sentimental buttons like the cringy finale of a reunion among his brothers.

 

 

But it’s well-paced, with excitingly done wrestling sequences and truthful intimate moments as well as a top-notch cast led by Zak Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James and Maura Tierney. There’s a quite good hi-def transfer; extras are a making-of featurette and a cast/crew Q&A.

 

 

 

Wednesday—Complete 1st Season 

The hit Netflix series—which is returning for a second season—follows the dark daughter of the Addams family in her exploits trying to solve murders at the school her mother Morticia also attended. If the show’s eight episodes are too jokey-scary in the way of Tim Burton’s own films from Beetlejuice to Alice in Wonderland, it’s because Burton had a big hand here, executive producing and even directing four of the episodes.

 

 

Of course, it’s demented fun, with a distinctive cartoonish visual look; best of all is Jenna Ortega’s bullseye portrayal of Wednesday, charmingly winning and wittily spiteful. It all looks eye-popping in hi-def.

 

 

 

CD Release of the Week 

For their latest first-rate recording, JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra presents two works separated by over a century but linked by their Eastern European roots: Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 (1885) and David Ludwig’s Violin Concerto (2015).

 

 

Written for his then new wife, the superb violinist Bella Hristova, Ludwig’s three-movement concerto includes musical references to her father Yuri Chichkov’s violin concerto and Ludwig’s Czech ancestry and gives Hristova plenty of room to show off her elegant and emotional playing. The Dvořák work might not equal his final two symphonies—the masterly Eighth and “New World”—but contains much lovely music nevertheless. Falletta and the BPO shine mightily throughout.