PSO celebrates Bernstein’s Pittsburgh legacy in concert
On Aug. 25, the world celebrated what would have been the 100th birthday of one of the 20th century’s most nuclear artists: Leonard Bernstein.
Orchestras around the world have programmed concerts this season celebrating Bernstein’s music and legacy, and on Friday the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra offered its own tribute to the late maestro.
Bernstein’s most historic Pittsburgh connection was the 1944 premiere by the PSO of the composer’s first symphony, “Jeremiah,” with Bernstein conducting. This work catapulted him onto the American stage as a composer of “serious” music.
On Friday in Heinz Hall, the PSO reprised this premiere with music director Manfred Honeck on the podium and mezzo soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as soloist. The rest of the program featured works that Bernstein conducted with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra throughout his career.
Perhaps an even greater legacy than the premiere, however, is the number of musicians in the PSO who worked directly with Bernstein.
“Nobody else could get away with the kinds of things Bernstein did musically,” said principal clarinetist Michael Rusinek in a phone interview prior to the concert. Mr. Rusinek worked with Bernstein as a 17-year-old student at the Tanglewood Institute in Lenox, Mass., in the 1980s.
“The way he stretched the tempos and the liberties with phrasing that he took ... I remember once he jumped about four feet in the air and landed on the podium with the biggest THUD! while he was conducting just to get a bigger reaction out of the orchestra. No one’s like Bernstein.”
Mr. Honeck, who credits Bernstein for giving him the paternal shove he needed to commit to his conducting career (“So you see, it’s really his fault,” Mr. Honeck joked earlier in the week), takes a more subtle approach on the podium. Friday’s concert began with Beethoven’s “Leonore” overture, which didn’t quite cohere into the triumph that it could have. Perhaps too much emphasis on individual phrases and details, and not enough to the overall emotional arc of the work.
Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G Major followed, and the musicians maintained a warm, rustic feel throughout. The cello and oboe duet in the Largo movement was especially lovely. But Mr. Honeck could have taken a leaf out of Bernstein’s own interpretation of this work; there was some messy violin articulation in both the first and final movements, with the latter losing much of its plucky charm due to overly aggressive string playing.
The “Jeremiah” symphony followed intermission, the clear heart and highlight of the evening. The rich drama and tension of the opening movement — each phrase exquisitely crafted by Mr. Honeck and the orchestra — contrasted sublimely with the cheery insouciance of the second movement’s scherzo, a musical depiction of the destruction of the First Temple. The final movement, “Lamentation,” featured Ms. Cano (a regular performer at The Metropolitan Opera) to great effect, her enormous, gorgeous voice filling the hall with an eerie sense of mourning before the work faded to a contemplative finish.
The orchestra closed with an enjoyable but unremarkable performance of Stravinsky’s Suite from “The Firebird.” PSO musicians are now performing short bonus works after the main concert finishes — Friday’s post-concert offering featured clarinetist Victoria Luperi, bassist Jeffery Grubs, percussionist Andrew Reamer and pianist Rodrigo Ojeda in “Riffs” from Bernstein’s “Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.” This was a superb finish to the evening, a frothy, jazzy finale to Pittsburgh’s tribute to one of the all-time greats.
Pittsburgh Opera stages traditional ’Madama Butterfly’
In an opera in which the imperialism of 19th century and the devastation of the colonized are distilled into two principal characters, the score keeps the cultural associations clear without condemning said imperialism with too broad a brush or heavy a hand. The music doesn’t need to explicitly tell listeners that America’s Lt. Pinkerton’s sham “marriage” to the innocent butterfly (Cio-Cio-San) is selfserving, or what a callous tragedy is his abandonment of his pregnant bride, or that his return three years later to claim his son is one of the cruelest acts in operatic history.
Rather, Puccini wraps listeners in a warm wash of gorgeous melody, weaving in pensive fugues, breathtaking moments and nationalistic snatches of melody while excoriating the lieutenant via the libretto. The music is the sugar that helps the medicine go down, the beauty that makes watching the human catastrophe unfold bearable. In Pittsburgh Opera’s season-opening production of “Madama Butterfly” on Friday, the orchestra proved as much a star as anyone onstage, delivering Puccini’s music with precision and poignancy and providing a luxurious counterpoint to the ugliness of the narrative.
Linda Brovsky directed this straightforward but affecting production, with smaller details selling the show. Falling flower petals at key moments and Pinkerton’s son saluting him after the butterfly’s death were particularly evocative. Conductor Antony Walker kept singers and instrumentalists exactly together while allowing Puccini’s more indulgent lines to breathe.
Making her Pittsburgh Opera debut as Cio-Cio-San (the butterfly) was RussianAmerican soprano Dina Kuznetsova, who delivered her arias with inspired legato, tapering the ends of each phrase with finely polished lyricism. She plucked each pitch out of thin air, seemingly effortlessly, with a penetrating but soft tone that caressed the ear and carried through to the back of the Benedum.
Her counterpart, Cody Austin, brought a bright but undersized tenor to the role of Lt. Pinkerton, his performance strengthening after the first act. Mr. Austin played Pinkerton as a straight but unwitting villain — contrasting coldly with Michael Mayes’ Sharpless (the America consul in Japan), who recognizes the amorality of Pinkerton’s actions but does nothing. Mr. Mayes brought depth but no agency to this incarnation of Sharpless, his rich baritone ringing a touch hollow in the face of Pinkerton’s betrayal. Laurel Semerdjian as Suzuki — Cio-Cio-San’s maid — immediately stood out as one of the strongest voices, a forceful, plush mezzo bringing emotional heft to the production.
John Gunter’s set, an open house on the cost of Nagasaki, tilted jauntily to keep each character in view regardless of placement, felt static. The house occupied nearly the full stage, so characters and chorus members seemed crammed to the side. The pacing mostly clipped along but dipped at the end of the second act as Cio-CioSan prepares and waits for Pinkerton to return. Overall, a strong production of “Butterfly.”
This opera is a window into another more troubling time, yet it remains one of the most popular operas in the repertoire. It sells tickets to be sure — the Benedum looked quite full — but the portrayals of Japanese culture are dated. Still, in today’s charged climate, discussing the differences between the time of “Butterfly” and now can make ripe fodder for postshow conversation, whether you’ve seen it once or a hundred times.
This program repeats Tuesday at 7 p.m.; Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $7-$164; pittsburghopera.org.