February 16-22, 2006
artpicks
Nightingale CallingAs with Le sacre du printemps, Igor Stravinsky's entrancing Solovei (The Nightingale) is usually called by its French title, Le rossignol, by which it first saw performance in Paris in 1914, under the auspices of impresario extraordinaire Sergei Diaghilev. The aesthetically revolutionary (if anti-Bolshevik) Russian composer co-crafted with Stepan Mitusov a winning libretto for this China-set "musical fairy tale" derived from Hans Christian Andersen's Danish-language original. (Talk about a multicultural text.) Led by conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the fine Curtis Symphony Orchestra traverses Stravinsky's fascinating little opera alongside selections from Sergei Prokofiev's stunning ballet suites Romeo and Juliet, first performed in 1938. In the high-flying title role, Stravinsky created one of the last great vehicles for coloratura sopranos; here the highly promising Israeli soprano Rinnat Moriah takes the acrobatically soaring part of the bird whose unaffected song brings happiness to all, from a simple fisherman in her native woods (tenor Dominic Armstrong) and an enterprising cook (Lishir Inbar) to the emperor of China (baritone Jonathan Beyer)until she is threatened with replacement by a Japanese-made mechanical rival. (A striking recent DVD production starring Natalie Dessay ingeniously transformed Stravinsky's work into a protest against the dangers of dehumanizing globalization.) Given the Curtis Institute's high musical standards, these two 20th-century Russian masterpieces should guarantee a dazzling concert.
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