Cirque performers star in MSO holiday concert

The Milwaukee Symphony did a fabulous job of upstaging itself Wednesday evening, which was exactly the point of the concert.

This one-night Milwaukee Symphony Pops event featured Cirque de la Symphonie’s holiday program.

If Cirque de la Symphonie brings an image of Cirque du Soleil to mind, you’re on the right track.

This particular cirque features a troupe of aerial artists, acrobats, contortionists, strongmen, jugglers, dancers, etc., in a jaw-dropping performance choreographed to orchestral holiday music.

The orchestra, led by assistant conductor Yaniv Dinur, opened with a crisp, festive rendition of Leroy Anderson’s “A Christmas Festival.”

Dinur spoke to the audience, doing a bit of good-natured kvetching about being the only person in the theater who would not see the cirque performers.

Dinur later became a willing conspirator in a how-didthey-do-that bit of magic, in which he left the orchestra playing with no conductor while he and the Harlequin character bound a female performer with ropes.

Dinur then entered a tiny silk tent with her, emerging about 20 seconds later with her wearing his jacket under the ropes that still bound her.

Seriously, how did they do that?

The orchestra played a few pieces without the Cirque performers on the stage, giving polished, lively performances of carol medleys and a festive “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” to which the Cirque performers took their bows.

It was however, a bit difficult to keep one’s ears on the orchestra while a man was flying in circles above the players and the front rows of the audience, clinging to long strips of silk that trailed and fluttered behind him like the tail feathers of a great bird. A fluid, slow-motion

suspended by those same silks and performed to the “Waltz of the Flowers” from “The Nutcracker”; a slowly shifting, precariously balanced human sculpture created by two men in shimmering gold body paint, performed to a mash-up of “The Little Drummer Boy” and “Bolero”; a man juggling to Rossini; a contortionist striking impossible poses to “The Skater’s Waltz”; and an aerial rope act were all part of this festive upstaging of the MSO.

The performance received an enthusiastic standing ovation.