Arts & Events

New: Around & About: Music--Berkeley Symphony Concert This Wednesday--& a Two-Fer Ticket Deal ... and a Note in Review of Philharmonia's Scarlatti Program, The Glory of Spring, Performed Again this Sunday in Berkeley

Ken Bullock
Saturday October 10, 2015 - 12:11:00 PM

--Berkeley Symphony will play its first concert after Summer break this Wednesday, October 14, instead of the usual Thursday evening time, with Joana Carneiro conducting Berlioz's Les Nuits d'ete (in remembrance of summer nights gone by ... sung by soprano Simone Osbourne), Laterna Magica by Kaija Saariaho and Ravel's flamboyant Bolero. all at Zellerbach Hall, on campus near Telegraph and Bancroft.

(Saariaho and her French composer husband Jean-Baptiste Barriere are in residence at UC Berkeley, and will attend the concert. This month, a parade of Saariaho's music will be presented in concert around the Bay Area. Details at: berkeleysymphony.org )

And the Symphony is offering a special two-fer ticket deal for this program--buy one full-price ticket, enter (or say) the code MAGIC15, get one for free. Tickets: $15-$74. 841-2800x1 or berkeleysymphony.org

--The Philharmonia Baroque struck up the opening of Scarlatti's rare Glory of Spring serenata The Glory of Spring in the First Congregational Church last Sunday, dedicated to a new heir to the Imperial throne in Vienna, hopefully bringing peace to Europe after years of warfare over succession--and the seasons themselves decried the violence and praised the newborn who'd hopefully keep the peace ... "May we never again hear the martial trumpets sound ... War no longer batters the land ... Our heroes wear the olive leaves of peace." 

For the orchestra, it was the first occasion of celebrating music director and conductor Nicholas McGegan's 30th anniversary season with Philharmonia--and it was typical enough of McGegan's longtime, often audacious programming, a little-known work by a great master, unperformed for three centuries. The guest vocalists--soprano Suzana Ograjensek, mezzo Diana Moore, countertenor Clint van der Linde, tenor Nicholas Phan and baritone Douglas Williams--brought much vocal power and finesse to this long (over two hours) and expansive work, accompanied at times by members of the Philharmonia Chorale, constantly reaching for more, while the orchestra played its sometimes unusual and innovative passages, its twists and turns, with brilliance. 

In the Chronicle, Joshua Kosman praised the orchestra and the ladies, especially Moore, but was more conservative about the men, remarking that van der Linde seemed to have problems with the score and praising Phan's singing more in the (admittedly finer) second half, hinting that he'd bordered on bathos in the first. 

In many ways enthusiastic about the work, Kosman criticized it for being egregiously unctuous in its praise for contemporary tastes, touching here on similar ground, perhaps, as an old complaint of Orson Welles about playing Shakespeare: "Americans think a king is a gentleman with a crown instead of a hat," regretting its lack of dramatic quality (though praising Williams' spirited, head-tossing entrance as Jove, gussied up in tux, black tie and pink breast pocket hankie) and that Scarlatti had never reworked the piece--especially after its dedicatee died just months later, eventually setting another war of succession into motion. 

In any case, the Berkeley audience last Sunday gave the performance a long ovation. There was something ravishing about a sumptuous Spring serenade of such proportions performed after three centuries in beautiful Fall weather, also expressive of a deep clarity of intention ... 

There's another chance to hear it: tonight, at 8, back at First Congregational, on Dana between Durant and Channing, near the UC campus, after making the rounds of Stanford and Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. It's something very much worth the time--and a good harbinger, if not of peace in the wars of its own period, of a fine season of celebration for the Philharmonia and Nic McGegan. 

Tickets: $25-$105. philharmonia.org