K-W Symphony 2018-2019 # 2: The Orchestra Looks East

This week's concert programme at the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony was definitely dominated by the music of Eastern Europe.  The concert opened with two shorter works from Romania and Hungary, and the first half wrapped up with Ravel.  Then, after the intermission, we heard Ravel's sublime orchestration of Mussorgsky's piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition.

While the evening was filled with musical interest at all levels, I have to point out that all of the works on this programme really tested the orchestra's virtuoso skills -- and in particular, the solo skills of leading players throughout the woodwind and brass sections (which Anna Russell so tellingly defined as the "Blow section").

The concert opened with the first of two Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11, by Romanian composer George Enescu.  Although Enescu had a long and distinguished career as a composer, conductor, musician, and teacher of the violin to such distinguished virtuosi as Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Grumiaux, and Ida Haendel, these two rhapsodies (composed at the ripe old age of 19) are by far his best-known compositions.

The woodwind soloists presented the pastoral lines of the slow opening section with true tone and ideal legato.  Once the increasingly frantic moto perpetuo of the faster second part got under way, it was the strings' turn to display impressive unanimity on the endlessly repeated off-beat chords, whether bowed or pizzicato.  Music Director Andrei Feher gave the music room to breathe in the slower part, with understated but effective rubato.  His crisp direction in the hectic final pages held the music impressively together.

The next work, similar in character if not in nationality (Hungarian this time), was the Dances of Galánta, composed in 1933 by Zoltán Kodály.  The work opens with a slow introduction, a clarinet cadenza, and a stately dance in andante maestoso; the four succeeding dances are faster.  In this way, Kodály has preserved the traditional slow-fast pattern found in so many Eastern European musical traditions -- a pattern which often is derived from the lassu-friss' of the Roma.  As with the Enescu, the music gets steadily faster and more frantic as it approaches the finish line.

Everything I said about the performance of the Enescu also held true here.  I confess to a personal preference for the Kodály over the Enescu, and the orchestra's performance definitely brought out all the wealth of colour and rhythmic imagination in this undervalued score.

The first half concluded with the Concerto in D Major for Piano (left hand) and Orchestra by Maurice Ravel.  This work was composed simultaneously with the sparkling G Major Piano Concerto.  And I have to confess that I have never enjoyed the Left Hand Concerto at all.  Both dark and (in the main) ponderous, it sails perilously close to Donald Tovey's infamous description of an early Liszt tone poem as a series of introductions to introductions to introductions.

Pianist Teo Gheorgiu gave a sterling account of the solo part.  As always, it was fascinating to watch on the overhead screen as his left hand negotiated virtuoso fireworks which often sound as if the pianist is cheating with both hands (he wasn't).  Conductor Feher integrated the orchestral support with care, and the performance hung together most effectively.  It's certainly not the performers' fault that the work itself always seems to me to hang fire.

Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was composed in 1874 for piano, and in its original form is one of the great virtuoso challenges of the repertoire.  Maurice Ravel was commissioned to create an orchestral arrangement in 1922, and did so with such skill and imagination that his version has far overshadowed all of the many other orchestral versions which have been created.  In recent years, it has become a rather overworked showpiece -- but I'm sure this will continue to be true until audiences stop buying tickets and/or recordings, an event which doesn't seem either likely or imminent.

Be that as it may, Feher and the orchestra treated the Ravel version to one of the finer performances among the many I have heard.  The various wind and brass solos were all treated to effective but understated renditions, giving them more of a feeling of integration with the work as a whole than one sometimes hears.  Apart from one or two moments, the orchestral ensemble was well-balanced and coordinated at all times.  If The Marketplace at Limoges was a bit loose around the edges of rhythm, no such problem attended the wild ride of the Baba Yaga in The Hut on Chicken's Claws -- and the slower central section of that piece had as spooky and unnerving an atmosphere as I can ever recall hearing.  The final Great Gate of Kiev was grand without becoming over-driven, and the concluding pages retained absolute clarity amid the orchestral glories.

A rewarding and effective concert indeed.

The Theatre of Subversion

The Penelopiad
by Margaret Atwood
Directed by Megan Follows
Presented by the Grand Theatre, London ON

It's kind of hard to believe this.  I've been going to all kinds of musical events, but the last theatre performance I attended was last May.  Seriously.  Last May.

Well, it's high time I sharpened my theatre critic's chops again, and the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, certainly provided an ideal opportunity with a stunning production of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad.

The script of this play was adapted by Atwood from her 2007 novella of the same title.  The title only appears to say it all.  It suggests, accurately, that we are to see and hear the epic story of Odysseus from the viewpoint of his homebound wife, Penelope.  The story is in fact being told at a later date (today?) from the depths of Hades, the Greek underworld.  But more than this: Penelope is joined in her storytelling by a chorus (naturally -- this is a Greek tragedy, after all) of the maids who supported her during her long vigil.

On the surface, then. the basic concept of the play appears to subvert the familiar myth told with such power in the Homeric epic, The Odyssey.  But that's only the starting point.  The chorus continually bring home to the audience the stark differences of class and breeding which make their lives so different from that of the titular protagonist.  In the end, it is they who have the last word on the story, and that last word is no kinder to Penelope than to any of the other characters.

Then, there's Atwood's language -- language which repeatedly subverts the epic themes of life and death and love and faithfulness.  In part, this is because Penelope moves into and out of different styles of language with ease.  Her common, everyday manner of speaking certainly brings the cardboard cutouts of heroic figures into human focus before more stately phrases put them right back onto their pedestals.  In part, it's because the chorus of maids repeatedly puncture the romantic, heroic pretensions of others with childlike energy or bitter, sardonic irony.  And in large measure, it's because Atwood in her writing specializes in the comedic trick of setting up expectations and then reversing them at the last second.  

As a result, the play is rib-achingly funny one minute (which epic stories are generally supposed not to be), and then suddenly shifts gears into darkest tragedy with devastating effect.

The great strength of this production is the way it takes all of these contradictory, conflicting currents in the script and magnifies them all through visual, verbal, and physical story telling of a high order.

Director Megan Follows herself played the lead role in a 2012 production in Toronto.  Her take on the script this time around led to the boundaries being pushed in all possible directions, from the depths of tragedy to almost circus-like antics.  Her directorial pacing of the show ensured that all parts of the script were clearly audible, none of the language being lost in a race to the finish line. Yet the play moved briskly, with no opportunity for lapse of concentration from the audience.

Except for Penelope (more on her presently), every actor in the show plays three or more roles.  All take turns at being part of the chorus of maids, all have appearances as one of the suitors for Penelope's hand, and all play one or more other named characters.  The script imposes the necessity for some of these character changes to take place right before our eyes, on the turn of a dime, and in some cases without even the luxury of adding or shedding a costume item.  It's a tribute to the work of the company that the identity of each character remained completely clear at all times.  The script also demands -- and receives -- a high level of ensemble work from the actors.  This chorus of actors generated a great deal of the powerful energy that drove this production forward.

One result, perhaps intended by Atwood, certainly intended by Follows, is that traditional concepts of gender get totally subverted by this cross-casting.  Most notably this was true in the graphic (but not pornographic) scene where the suitors raped the maids.  When a female actor portraying a male character is sexually assaulting a male actor portraying a female character, the notion of "gender" tends to develop wings and fly out the window.  In fact, it had flown out the window long before that terrifying scene, and I didn't even stop to analyze what had taken place in those terms until the morning after I saw the show.

Speaking of wings, the chorus group brought many striking abilities into the show.  Singing, chanting, and dancing one expects -- that being the nature of the chorus role in the ancient Greek theatre.  Flying acrobatics were another matter, and very effectively handled.  Moments of stage fighting were treated as part of the choreography, and displayed suitable edge and energy.  The final scene depicting the hanging of the maids was both gripping and terrifyingly real.

Composer Deanna H. Choi provided evocative soundscapes to underlie certain scenes, but did her most memorable work in providing music for the chorus.  The songs she composed shared stylistic elements with some of the early rock musicals of my youth, such as Jesus Christ Superstar and Hair, both of which continue to hold the stage.  This element, too, subverted the tragic central themes of the play.  Some of the chorus songs were downright catchy and toe-tapping tunes, to the point of being actually fun, while the texts being sung were anything but.  Talk about being pulled two ways at once.  Although the music sounded very down-to-earth and familiar, in a way, some of it was more musically sophisticated than it appeared at first blush, and the singers impressively delivered the goods with finesse.

It would be unfair in the extreme to single out any member of the chorus for their work as chorus, but some certainly deserved kudos for their appearances as non-choral characters.  Praneet Akilla gave a restrained but forceful performance as Odysseus, using his signature grin to highlight the mercurial trickster element in the man.  Tess Benger created a first-rate spoiled brat as Telemachus, merely obnoxious one moment, and harshly judgmental the next.  Deborah Drakeford clearly delineated two quite distinct characters as Icarius and Anticleia.  Ellora Patnaik gave us a portrait of Helen which slid back and forth rapidly between overripe seductress and sarcastic joker.

The one truly epic element of the play is, of course, the character of Penelope.  She has to command the stage for all but a few minutes of a two-hour show.  Her speaking part comprises much more than 50% of the performance time, and includes many lengthy speeches.  The language in this role makes free use of all kinds of moods, styles, and shades of meaning, with rapid changes in any or all of those aspects.

For this epic-scaled role, then, an epic actor is a necessity -- a woman who has a voice capable of a huge range of vocal tones, pitches and shadings, a woman who can find the right place, position, gesture, facial expression for every moment, a woman who has that indefinable but essential ability to draw the audience's eyes and ears for every second she's on the stage.  I'm sure it's the presence of Seana McKenna, one of the great Canadian theatre artists of our time, that has drawn many people to see this production (she certainly drew me in).

From the first sentence -- an epic formula followed by a comedic deflation payoff -- McKenna set the tone of the entire show.   Her role is about 2/3 narration of past events to 1/3 acting those events.  Generally, nothing works quite so well as a long narration to spoil a play -- the traditional formula in theatre is that you should never tell what you can show.  In this case, the potential weakness turns into a great strength, the power of the performer saving the script from what might otherwise be a pitfall.

McKenna's vocal range served the script very well, making it possible for her to point up the comic reversals with subtlety where others might need to hit the audience over their heads.  I'm certain that she drew out more possibilities in the language, rich as it is, than most actors would find.  Physically, too, she captured the multiple moods of Penelope with believable realism.   In many ways, the late scenes when events career out of her control were the most realistic of the entire play.

The Penelopiad is definitely a gripping theatrical experience.  Performances continue at the Grand Theatre until February 9.