Dec. 27: Concertante and Brahms-Schoenberg Qt. streamed from Vienna

[volcanohunter]

On Wednesday, December 27, at 19:00 CET/1:00 pm Eastern, the Vienna State Ballet will livestream Van Manen's Concertante and Balanchine's Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. (The program also includes Forsythe's In the middle, somewhat elevated, which, apparently, won't be streamed.)

These streams are available on demand for 72 hours. The stream is free of charge, but logging in is required; registration requires only a name and email address.

https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/b1a1d6a0-266e-47ea-ab76-e47e347991c6

Casting for the program:

https://www.wiener-staatsoper.at/en/season-tickets/detail/event/1002773622-shifting-symmetries/ 

Edited December 27, 2023 by volcanohunter

[volcanohunter]

This is the casting currently up, so I'll assume it's accurate for the livestream.

Concertante
Liudmila Konovalova, Aleksandra Liashenko, Iliana Chivarova, Alisha Brach
Marcos Menha, Géraud Wielick, François-Eloi Lavignac, Andrés Garcia Torres

Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet
I. Hyo-Jung Kang, Masayu Kimoto, Natalya Buchko
II. Kiyoka Hashimoto, Marcos Menha; Sonia Dvořák, Alice Firenze, Aleksandra Liashenko
III. Liudmila Konovalova, Davide Dato; Gala Jovanovic, Katharina Miffek, Ella Persson
IV. Ketevan Papava, Alexey Popov

Edited December 27, 2023 by volcanohunter

[volcanohunter]

91-year-old Hans Van Manen took a bow at the end of Concertante. So did the team responsible for staging Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. There was no break between the two pieces, so presumably Quartet had been filmed at an earlier performance. 

[Helene]

I noticed from the credits that the staging was done by Nilas Martins and Christian Tworzyanski, and the casting on the screen matches what volcanohunter posted, although not broken down by movement.

I disliked most of the costumes.  The deconstructed bow at the sides of the First Movement women looked like something from an alien species in the Star Trek franchise.  The Second  Movement women's dresses looked like they weren't finished in time.  Simple can be fine, but I think they were too much of a contrast with the First Movement, and I didn't see what differentiated the lead from the corps.  The lead woman's bodice in the Third Movement had a nicer cut, in my eyes, to the corps', but the cups were distracting.  I loved the design and cut of the Fourth Movement, but the gray, gah.  It was like winter had arrived, when that movement usually lights up the stage.  And that movement needs a go-for-broke and competitive yet playful approach.  It's hard not to miss Damien Woetzel in it, but I've seen many a brighter performance.

You can really see the originals through some of these performances, especially the fantastic First Movement soloist role made for Gloria Govrin, Patricia McBride's in the Second Movement, and Villella's in the Third Movement, in which Davide Dato showed the beautiful, springy jumps in the solo.  You can also see why Hayden felt that Balanchine had not given his best to her, especially compared to the other three women's roles. 

I loved the leotards in Concertante.

[volcanohunter]

I have a fraught relationship with Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet because I hate the music. More precisely, I loathe what Schoenberg did to it. Brahms is hands down my favorite composer, and I adore his Piano Quartet no. 1; I love his four-hands version just as much. But Schoenberg's bells and whistles, particularly in the third and fourth movements, are an abomination. So it's not a ballet I go out of my way to see (and I similarly avoid Mozartiana, Piano Concerto no. 2, even Allegro Brillante; ditto Ashton's Rhapsody ). The advantage this time was that I could turn the sound down and admire the choreography more or less on its own without tearing my hair out over the orchestration. But probably because I didn't have objections to Frank Martin's Petite symphonie concertante and watched the ballet at normal volume settings, I got more pleasure out of Concertante. 

[Quiggin]

2 hours ago, Helene said:

Villella's in the Third Movement, in which Davide Dato showed the beautiful, springy jumps in the solo.

They were amazing, especially in the asymmetrically crossed-leg figures that you can also see Villella making.

50 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

and I similarly avoid Mozartiana

Mozartiana!

[volcanohunter]

3 minutes ago, Quiggin said:

Mozartiana!

I loathe the music. It's Mozart abuse. The Preghiera makes me want to retch. There's nothing I can do about it. 

I have no objections to Orchestral Suite no. 3.

[California]

On 12/22/2023 at 5:18 PM, volcanohunter said:

On Wednesday, December 27, at 19:00 CET/1:00 pm Eastern, the Vienna State Ballet will livestream Van Manen's Concertante and Balanchine's Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet. (The program also includes Forsythe's In the middle, somewhat elevated, which, apparently, won't be streamed.)

These streams are available on demand for 72 hours. The stream is free of charge, but logging in is required; registration requires only a name and email address.

https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/b1a1d6a0-266e-47ea-ab76-e47e347991c6

Casting for the program:

https://www.wiener-staatsoper.at/en/season-tickets/detail/event/1002773622-shifting-symmetries/ 

Thanks for posting this. Excellent video quality and streaming reception. I am not a van Manen fan, so I skipped that. As for the Balanchine, I LOVE the final movement -- Balanchine-does-Slavic (sorry!) and the upbeat, joyous music. 

[volcanohunter]

10 hours ago, California said:

Excellent video quality and streaming reception.

Yes, this is an important point. In the past I inevitably had some hiccups watching ballet streams from Vienna on computers and laptops, and this was the first time I didn't have to resort to the app for a smooth stream.