Tag: Preview

Restaging “Giselle,” a revealing, exciting adventure

A page from the choreographic notation of the ballet Giselle in the Stepanov notation system. Courtesy Harvard Theatre Collection.

By Philippa Kiraly

For the past year, Pacific Northwest Ballet’s artistic director, Peter Boal, dance historian Marian Smith, and Boal’s assistant and choreographic decipherer Doug Fullington, have been working on a restaging of the romantic ballet “Giselle” which goes back to the original score of composer Adolph Adam, original and extensive 1842 rehearsal notes, a detailed choreographic notation from 1860 and the Stepanov choreographic notation of 1899-1903.

“It’s a bit like cleaning the Sistine Chapel ceiling,” says Fullington, commenting that the ceiling was beautiful as was, but cleaning brought into the light bright colors and many areas not particularly noticeable before. “The ballet is more dense, secondary characters are fleshed out. Some of the work that has been simplified over time, we find is more complex.”

“Giselle,” a famous story ballet which has remained in the repertoire and performed all over the ballet world since its premiere in Paris in 1841, took a long time to establish itself in the U.S.
Continue reading Restaging “Giselle,” a revealing, exciting adventure

Mara Gearman and Alexander Bishop talk about their upcoming recital

Composer Alexander Bishop’s music came into wider awareness last spring when SSO violist Mara Gearman played two of his works as part of Paul Taub’s May Day, May Day festival. Gearman was looking for a couple of new pieces of music to play for the festival, and Bishop was seeking a violist to to play two short pieces he wrote for Viola. Bishop and Gearman are taking their partnership one step further on December 1st with a an all Bishop recital featuring two brand new works: a viola sonata and a string quartet. Composer and violist sat down with me last Saturday to talk about the recital, their creative partnership, and even the possibility of new Bishop compositions for the viola (a viola concerto perhaps?)

For your Thanksgiving and Black Friday viewing pleasure!

Continue reading Mara Gearman and Alexander Bishop talk about their upcoming recital

MOR commissions Vedem; receives world premiere next week

Composer Lori Laitman

By Peter A. Klein

The poetry of teenaged Jewish boys imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp will be given new life in the oratorio “Vedem,” by composer Lori Laitman and librettist David Mason. “Vedem” will receive its world premiere at Music of Remembrance’s spring concert on Monday evening, May 10 at 8:00 PM in Benaroya Recital Hall.

Laitman believes that these lines of Mason’s express the essence of the piece:

We lived for what we wrote and painted,

as if imagination were a jewel.

Terezín (aka Theresienstadt) is an old Czech fortress town which the Nazis turned into a transit camp during the Holocaust. 144,000 Jews were sent to Terezín, including many from the arts and letters. One-quarter of the prisoners died there, and two-thirds were later killed in the death camps. Yet they created an astounding cultural life in Terezín, which existed right alongside starvation, cold, overcrowding, disease, and death.
Continue reading MOR commissions Vedem; receives world premiere next week

“Pulchinella Gets Even”

By Philippa Kiraly

The correct title of Paisiello’s 1770 opera is “Pulchinella Vendicato.” Y ou can translate vendicato as vengeance or revenge, or as puppeteer Stephen Carter put it, gets even.

However you don’t have to wait long to find out just what Pulchinella does in that vein as the opera begins Friday this week and goes on weekends until May 2, at Northwest Puppet Center.

This is the 11th consecutive year opera has been mounted by the Puppet Center, with a fine early music ensemble of singers and instrumentalists, and of course, the puppets themselves. Stephen Carter has made several new puppets for this show and all of them have new clothes, made by Christine Carter.

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