Keep your eyes on the conductor's baton

[YouOverThere]

...if you're in the audience. At tonights (2/24) performance by the Russian National Orchestra at the University of Denver, the conductor got so into the opening bars of their encore (Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila by Glinka) that he lost control of his baton and it ended up in the 4th row of the audience.

The RNO is a pretty impressive ensemble, at least to someone who is not in one of the major arts markets. Their style was a little different than what I'm used to with the Colorado Symphony - more heavily accented and abrupt, which was especially noticeable in the first movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony (their featured piece on this tour). This gave the 4th a little more Beethoven-like power and avoided the tendency to make especially the middle movements "syrupy" (is that a word)?

[bart]

Ouch! Lucky no one was hurt.

The orchestra is coming to our town (two different programs) in early March, followed by 4 performances at a festival in Boca Raton just a bit south of us, including one that is basically a Renee Fleming recital. The variety of offerings, and soloists, is impressive. We'll see a different program from yours: 2 Beethovens and a Dvorak, but with the same pianist in the concerto (Beethoven No. 5)

I wonder how and where the Russians get the resources -- and the visas -- to mount such huge and logistically complex tours. The U.S. visa situation must, all by itself, be a monumental pain in the neck. The Bolshoi and Maryinsky tour all year long. The NY Times today has a review of a performance by Gergiev and the Maryinsky orchestra and chorus in Manhattan. In contrast, touring in the U.S. by large U.S. organizations is on the decline, apparently, with cost the major factor. (Edward Villella often repeats that Miami City Ballet's 6-performance week at City Center last winter cost $1 million.)

The U.S. Tour seems to be very extensive:

February 17, 2010 Seattle WA

February 18, 2010 Davis CA

February 19, 2010 Berkeley CA

February 20, 2010 Cerritos CA

February 23, 2010 Beaver Creek CO

February 23, 2010 Berkeley CA

February 24, 2010 Denver CO

February 26, 2010 Kansas City MO

February 28, 2010 Granville OH

March 3, 2010 West Palm Beach FL

March 4, 2010 West Palm Beach FL

March 5, 2010 Sarasota FL

March 7, 2010 Orlando FL

Festival of the Arts BOCA 2010

March 6, 2010 Boca Raton FL with Renee Fleming

March 10, 2010 Boca Raton FL

March 12, 2010 Boca Raton FL

March 13, 2010 Boca Raton FL

http://www.russianarts.org/rno/index.cfm

[Ray]

The RNO is a pretty impressive ensemble, at least to someone who is not in one of the major arts markets. Their style was a little different than what I'm used to with the Colorado Symphony - more heavily accented and abrupt, which was especially noticeable in the first movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony (their featured piece on this tour). This gave the 4th a little more Beethoven-like power and avoided the tendency to make especially the middle movements "syrupy" (is that a word)?

Sounds just like how I expect a Russian ensemble to play Tchaikovsky: to use a syrupy word, with soul.

[bart]

I notice that the tour conductor, Patrick Summers -- the guy who lost his baton -- is also conducting two of next seasons HD/Live performances at the Met:

Iphigenie en Tauride on Feb. 26, 2011, and Lucia on March 19.

Summers is listed as conducdting the entire RNO tour, including Fleming's recital in Boca, but not the other 3 Boca performances.

[papeetepatrick]

The RNO is a pretty impressive ensemble, at least to someone who is not in one of the major arts markets. Their style was a little different than what I'm used to with the Colorado Symphony - more heavily accented and abrupt, which was especially noticeable in the first movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony (their featured piece on this tour). This gave the 4th a little more Beethoven-like power and avoided the tendency to make especially the middle movements "syrupy" (is that a word)?

Sounds just like how I expect a Russian ensemble to play Tchaikovsky: to use a syrupy word, with soul.

And maybe 'grandeur', which YOT may be referring to by 'Beethoven-like power', which, come to think of it, probably ought to be the right direction for a lot of Tchaikovsky and much more. I use 'syrupy' all the time, but haven't seen 'cloying' and 'treacly' nearly as often as I need to, and used to be frequent among movie reviewers in particular, along with 'saccharine'. But I don't read critics as much as I used to, they don't even seem like profound creatures even when I agree with them, although I was pleased recently by Macaulay's assessment of Sara Mearns in 'Swan Lake'. He goes for hyperbole when he can't resist it, but which of us doesn't?

[YouOverThere]

I hope that the conductor brought along an extra for the tour, because the person who ended up with it kept it as a souvenir.

[Quiggin]

Vladimir Jurowski was the principal conductor of the Russian National Orchestra when it came to San Francisco two years or so ago and the sound was very elegant and maybe a bit dry. Jurowski is fascinating to watch conduct, his hands sometimes at his sides, his fingers making the most lean and precise moves, like a card player's.

But it was Evgeny Mravinsky -- sort of the Furtwangler of Russia, and at one time I believe briefly Balanchine's librettist -- who changed the way a lot of the friends I was influenced by thought about Tchaikovsky, who totally desyruped and detreaclized the 4, 5, and 6th. He brought out all the odd little wayward voices of oboes and violins, their differences of opinion, and banished the big waves of obvious emotion.

The French costume designer I knew at my community garden in Los Angeles (off Franklin Street of other threads) said that for her it was Klemperer, precise and dry to the point of sarcarsm sometimes, who opened her eyes to Tchaikovsky, that when she grew up in the twenties in Paris everyone made fun of him, even when years later in LA they were at the Vera Stravinsky's -- who was also a gardener, once greeting her with buckets of manure tea in hand -- they would have to be careful not make fun of Tchaikovsky because Igor Stravinsky would dart in every once and a while to hear what the "girls" were saying. For her, before Klemperer Tchaikovsky was a sitz bath, "only up to here," afterwards a total immersion of understanding.