Attention Readers: The Arts Fuse has moved — its new address is http://artsfuse.org/

The Arts Fuse began as my blog after the untimely end of NPR/WBUR Arts Online. But, as more writers and critics wanted to make their voices heard, the blog became a magazine. So, I decided to make it a New England focused magazine modeled on other pioneering efforts to cover the news online, such as Pro Publica. We are one of the few publications around to feature professional arts and culture coverage written expressly for the web. And now we look like a real online magazine — a blog no more.

Two significant events this year helped move us in this direction. First, the Arts Fuse became the website of the non-profit corporation Global Narratives. Donations to Global Narratives are tax-deductible. (A special Founding Member introductory offer runs through the end of September.)

Second, we received from the Massachusetts Council on the Humanities the first of what I hope to be many grants for experimenting with arts coverage online. Check out Judicial Review when you have the chance — the next “session” in early November will revolve around Gish Jen’s novel World and Town.

The new site will accommodate our growing pains and then some. As the editor, I feel as if my blog was a jalopy and the new Arts Fuse is a starship. Please feel free to send in comments about the new site to info@artsfuse.org– what do you like?, what could use changing?

Meanwhile, this expansion is just the first of a number of changes to come. I have new writers and ideas aplenty. It is an exciting time to reinvent what it means to make what H. L. Mencken calls “an articulate noise” about arts and culture.

On a personal note, I appreciate the many donations that have come in, a number with encouraging words, some calling the Arts Fuse “an important initiative.” Thanks to the dedicated writers and the talented people behind the scenes — webmaster J. R. Carroll, development director Peter Walsh, and copy editor Alyssa Machado.

For me, this has been one of the happiest experiences of my life — at WBUR I not only enjoyed writing about theater and the arts, but found working with critics, young and old, an invigorating experience. Today, as newspapers and magazines shrink, the definition of criticism is in flux. Hand-wringing is easy — it is time to see this as an opportunity to work on creating new ways of taking the arts seriously. The web encourages conversation — and that is at the heart of meaningful criticism.

I teach full time at Boston University, which means I have only so many hours to dedicate to Art Fuse — but it is quality time at a labor of love.

Best,
Bill Marx
Editor, Arts Fuse

Reviewed by Susan Miron

Women of Will. Written and performed by Tina Packer. Directed by Eric Tucker. Featuring Tina Packer and Nigel Gore. At Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA, September 11 and 12.

“If you want to know what Shakespeare thought, listen to his women,” was Tina Packer’s oft repeated mantra over a 3 day, 5 performance marathon of her portrayal of the most important of Shakespeare’s female characters. A quite condensed version of this 15 hour-long Shakespeare-a-thon, Women of Will: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare’s Plays was performed earlier in the summer to great acclaim.

So what is the result of stretching this theatrical exploration/meditation into 31 scenes? Sometimes exhilarating, often thrilling, never pedestrian. I was not the only one (of about 140 people) sitting glued to her seat, hour after hour, day after day, but I might have been the only one with as scant a knowledge of Shakespeare. I was engaged throughout, but, of course, I love a marathon (as long as I’m sitting). I found the Wagner Ring in the Chicago Lyric Opera so compelling I wanted to go back and see it the next week.

So length doesn’t bother me or the several luminaries in the audience who were on hugging terms with each other and with Tina. I confess my power to sit had its limits: I loved every scene until a serious headache did me in on Part Four.

This was perhaps not every guy’s idea of Shakespeare, but the 15 or so mostly elderly men, most dragged there by their wives, stayed awake and didn’t look unhappy at this ardently feminist presentation of Shakespeare’s progress from callow youth to wise man.

Each time a few new spectators would join the Tin-a-thon the actress would explain the three meanings of will, as in Women of Will. There are, she says, 177 women and 770 men in his plays. Women are always Other, separate, outside of the power structure most of the time. There is, needless to say, the Will of the playwright’s name itself. Then there is the will to power and how power is wielded against his women. Finally there is the archaic meaning of sexual desire and “parts as well”—how the women use their sexuality and how it’s used against them.

The 23 scenes were held in a large rehearsal room: the configuration of the seats were rejiggered as the scenes changed. The young director Eric Tucker was actively involved; this was still a work-in-progress much of the time. But no one cared. The performances—31 scenes—of Packer and her frequent acting partner, Nigel Gore, were dazzling. Gore brought an element of danger, raw energy, and anger—like a tiger let loose—and he was never less than enthralling, if terrifying. He is a superb foil for Packer, as anyone who saw them last fall in Boston performing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? can attest.

Tina has clearly been passionate about this material for decades, and she seemed to be bursting with well-prepared, provocative thoughts of all historical and literary sorts. Much of the time I felt like as if I were enjoying an elite graduate seminar—lots of heady Tina Talk, lots of note taking because it was all so interesting, interrupted by her seamlessly moving,as an actor, into a scene that would illustrate exactly what she meant. It was enormously illuminating.

At lunch people kept talking about what they had just seen. It was okay for this to happen at lunch, but when we were—horrors!—asked by Tina for feedback, I thought this deeply detracted from the extraordinary mood created in this magical example of makeshift theater.

Actor Nigel Gore: Nothing if not Dangerous

Packer, founding artistic director (for 25 years) of Shakespeare & Company, has been working on this expansive interpretation of the feminine principle in the Bard for a long time, and the result was often exhilarating, sometimes thrilling. Packer subdivided her Shakespearean odyssey into five parts, each about three hours long.

“Act I: Warrior Women—from Violence to Negotiation” features (among others) “Warrior Women—From Violence to Negotiation,” which included Kate and Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew, three scenes from Henry VI and Romeo and Juliet, which was deeply moving and quite credible although this Juliet hasn’t been young for quite some while.

“Act II: New Knowledge—The Sexual Merges with the Spiritual” was simply stunning, featuring more of Juliet and Romeo, Desdemona and Othello (Othello), Beatrice and Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing), and an unforgettable Cleopatra and Antony, played on a velvet flooring of quilts, his head between her legs. As Packer sees it, Shakespeare writes from “within” Juliet who falls “equally in love and drives the language, actually suggesting marriage.”

In “Act III: Living Underground—Or, Dying to Tell the Truth,” Packer believes Shakespeare was using women now more and more to “tell the truth.” Says Packer, “If they stay in their frocks they end up dead.” This act featured a large cast—Hamlet; Desdemona and Othello again; Rosalind and Orlando from As You Like It; and, among others, Viola, Olivia, and Orsino from Twelfth Night.

When the Shakepeare-a-thon continued on Thursday morning, it was “Act IV: Chaos is Come Gain—The Lion Eats the Wolf.” The windows of the rehearsal studio were blackout out, and junk and papers covered the floor. No one was allowed in late to break the mood. It was the hand-washing scene with a spooky Lady Macbeth and the crazed Macbeth. This was surely one of the great scenes from any of the five acts, performed to perfection. The rest of this act included Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, Lear, and Gloucester, while Act V included characters from Pericles and The Winter’s Tale.

No doubt those who sat through all the 23 scenes wished for more. It was an exhausting adventure, led by a manically enthused and deeply generous tour director who happened to be a fabulous actor, as is her male co-star.

September Highlight: New England Conservatory faculty pianist Hung-Kuan Chen offers a free recital.

September 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29: Free Wednesday afternoon concerts continue throughout the month. September 1: Pianist Benjamin Warsaw plays works by Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Liszt, and Warsaw himself. September 8: A further celebration of Schumann’s bicentenary brings a program of songs, with soprano Lisa Lynch, mezzo Carola Emrich-Fisher, tenor Jason Sabol, bass-baritone Matthew Wight, and pianist Juliet Cunningham. September 15: Pei-yeh Tsai, a recent winner in an international piano competition, will offer Albeniz, Haydn, Scriabin, and Carl Vine. September 22: Flutist James Winn and that fine pianist David Kopp offer works by Franz Schubert and Bohuslav Martinu. September 29: Flutist Liz Horowitz and pianist Harrison Kelton offer Bach, Chaminade, de la Guerre, and Sammartini. At Church of St. John the Evangelist, 35 Bowdoin Street (Beacon Hill), Boston, MA, 5:30 p.m.

September 12: Retired Boston Symphony flutist Fenwick Smith gives a free, annual September concert. This year’s event will be devoted entirely to a performance of the 90-minute “Crippled Symmetry” by Morton Feldman (1926-1987), played on several types of flute, accompanied by pianist Sara Bob and percussionist Aaron Trant on vibraphone, celesta, and glockenspiel. At Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 3 p.m.

September 16: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum kicks off its season with a concert entitled “Avant Gardner Left Coast.” Represented are the much-lauded John Adams, James Tenney, Lou Harrison, and Terry Riley’s notorious “In C.” At the Gardner Museum, 280 The Fenway, Boston, MA, 7 p.m.

September 19: The Boston Conservatory’s ensemble-in-residence Juventas, in collaboration with dance students, presents a program of new original works by Phivos Kollias, Noam Faingold, Andres Carrizo, Nicolas Tzortzis, Biran Mark, William Zuckerman, Peter Lane, and Juraj Kojs. At Seully Hall, fourth floor, 8 The Fenway, Boston, MA, 2 p.m.

September 21: New England Conservatory faculty pianist Hung-Kuan Chen offers a free recital in which the program includes Beethoven’s Sonata in E-flat Major (Op. 27, No. 1), Chopin’s Nocturnes in B Major and E Major (Op. 62, Nos. 1 and 2), Bartók’s “Out of Doors Suite,” Scriabin’s Sonata No. 5, and Liszt’s monumental B-Minor Sonata. At Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 8 p.m.

Composer Samuel Barber: In honor of his centennial, Boston University will present a free concert performance of Vanessa, his finest work for the stage (and a Pulitzer Prize winner).

September 26: The Boston Conservatory hosts a two-day Boston Harp Festival with performances, panels, and master classes. The event culminates with a splendid Sunday concert: Astor Piazzolla’s “The History of Tango,” performed by Ann Hobson Pilot, recently retired Boston Symphony harpist, and Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) violinist Lucia Lin; Schubert’s “Arpeggione Sonata” (written for the long-obsolete string instrument and piano), arranged for cello and harp by Ina Zdorovetchi and performed by the arranger and cellist Holgen Gjoni; Debussy’s Dances for Harp and Strings, played by Ms. Pilot’s BSO successor Jessica Zhou; and Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, played by harpist Ursula Holliger with flutist Ona Jonaityte, clarinetist Rane Moore, and the three-year-old Arneis String Quartet. At Seully Hall, fourth floor, 8 The Fenway, Boston, MA, 8 p.m.

September 28: In honor of Samuel Barber’s centennial, Boston University is presenting a free concert performance of Vanessa, his finest work for the stage (and a Pulitzer Prize winner), with a libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti. In the title role is internationally active soprano Lauren Flanigan. William Lumpkin will conduct. At the Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, 8 p.m.

September 29: The New England Conservatory Philharmonia, the institution’s senior-most orchestra, presents its first concert of the year under Hugh Wolff, Director of Orchestras. He has chosen a dandy program: John Adams’s “Lollapalooza,” Beethoven’s too-little-played Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat (Op. 60), and Berlioz’s virtuosic “Symphonie Fantastique” (Op.14). At Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 8 p.m

By Helen Epstein

There were no star soloists or conductors around on Friday night and since the TMC is over, no music students to paper the hall. But with David Zinman (pictured) conducting a raring-to-go Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and an even more psyched Tanglewood Festival Chorus and soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, Friday night’s program of Poulenc’s Gloria and Holst’s The Planets Suite for Large Orchestra proved to be one of the highlights of this long, uneven summer at Tanglewood.

The evening sent the ovation-inflation monitor soaring. The orchestra and conductor received prolonged standing ovations from the audience; each section received ovations from the others; the choral director received an ovation from the musicians; everybody applauded the conductor.

The Tanglewood Festival Chorus under John Oliver was particularly crisp and alive with Armenian-Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian (pictured at left) making a satisfyingly earthy soloist for this less than ethereal piece of liturgical music. Holst’s astrological suite (we often hear the Jupiter section on classical radio stations), with its two harps, six timpani, and glockenspiel showcased the entire orchestra to advantage and gave anyone with a passing interest in astrology a lot to think about (Holst, a schoolteacher as well as amateur astrologer apparently enjoyed casting his friends’ horoscopes) and, as I listened to his program for the planets that control each sign, I found myself thinking of the temperaments of family and friends.

Musicians so like playing these pieces and audiences so much like hearing them it makes you wonder why they are not performed more frequently in Boston. Every single player and singer seemed thrilled to be performing this music, absorbed in it, attentive to their masterful conductor and having a good time. It made me think how often that is not the case at symphony concerts.
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Helen Epstein is the author of Music Talks in paper and on Kindle.

Freedom: A Novel, by Jonathan Franzen. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 576 pages, $28.

Reviewed by Tommy Wallach

In two days, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux will publish Freedom, the new novel by Jonathan Franzen whose last book, The Corrections, made just about every best-of list of 2001. It also earned the National Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and an offer (later rescinded) to be a selection of Oprah’s Book Club. Bret Easton Ellis called it one of the three great books of his generation, and just last year, the literary website The Millions voted it the best novel of the decade.

All of which is to say that something is in the air. It is possible that the rarest of occurrences—one comparable to a visit by Halley’s Comet, or a negative quarter for Apple, or a watchable M. Night Shyamalan film—is imminent. We may be about to witness a national conversation about literature.

When was the last time it happened? Scandals don’t count (sorry James Frey), nor does genre fiction (nobody was allowed to doubt Harry Potter, only to marvel at its stratospheric success). Hipsters may have discussed the finer points of a Dave Eggers or Jonathan Safran Foer novel, but the mainstream couldn’t have cared less. And the majority of the bestseller list is fodder for non-thought—the kind of stuff you read in order to avoid having a conversation.

In truth, one might have to look back to 2001 to The Corrections itself for an equivalent historical-literary moment, meaning there is quite a bit more resting on Franzen’s shoulders than the threat of sophomore slump. He is one of a very small cadre of authors still capable of firing up America’s interest in books. And Franzen seems to be well-aware of this fact, as evidenced not only by his occasional self-aggrandizing interview or unforgiving screed against “difficult” books (see the infamous “Harper’s Essay”), but by his newest novel itself. Freedom seems to take its inevitable cultural importance as its very premise, working backwards from there. So the question isn’t so much “Will people be talking?” but “What will they be talking about?”

Novelist Jonathan Franzen: He knows the way we live now? Photo by David Shankbone

The novel announces its major theme on the title page, and the nearly 600 pages that follow provide the variations. The kernel of the story concerns Walter and Patty Berglund, an average, suburban couple who spend the bulk of the novel struggling with freedoms, psychological, physical, sexual, and romantic.

“One strange thing about Patty, given her strong family orientation, was that she had no discernible connection to her roots,” we are bluntly told in the clever opening chapter of Freedom, which is narrated by a kind of collective suburban dislike of the Berglunds. Soon after, we are made privy to Patty’s autobiography—written at the behest of a nameless therapist. That Patty, a tall, white, college basketball superstar (who isn’t named Harry Angstrom), writes suspiciously like Jonathan Franzen is a fact we’re expected to ignore.

(A side note: While many critics have experienced near-ecstasy at Franzen’s literary stylings, I found the prose fairly unexciting. Though there are certainly moments of Updike-inspired beauty—a washed-up New Yorker actress in her late forties is described as dressing “tarty-teenage”, and she eats a piece of cake by “parceling out each small bite for intensive savoring, as if it were the best thing that was going to happen to her that day”—just as many lines are plain nonsense, such as the description of a character’s rent payments as “so low as to be literally nominal.” And though it may seem odd to have a discussion of an author’s style noted in parentheses, it seems perfectly reasonable to me in this case.)

Patty and Walter meet in college, where Patty is lusting after Walter’s friend and roommate, Richard Katz. Katz soon becomes a rock star, as the front man of The Traumatics, and his success is rekindled decades later (because that happens all the time) with a band called Walnut Surprise. Richard and Patty circle each other lustily for a couple hundred pages but don’t end up getting down and dirty until Patty has given in and married heart-of-gold Walter. Anguish inevitably ensues for all involved.

Richard was my least favorite character in a book full of hateful personalities. I’ve found the majority of recent portrayals of musicians in fiction to be problematic (Juliet, Naked and A Visit from the Goon Squad springing most immediately to mind), but Richard is by far the worst. The problem is Franzen’s penchant to sacrifice his veneer of realism whenever he has a stereotype to inflate and pop. Take this conversation Richard has with a young, earnest fan:

The kid was wearing a hoodie and the sort of low-cut skinny pants that Katz had first observed in London. “What do you think of Tutsi Picnic?” he said. “You into them?”

“Don’t know ‘em,” Katz said.

“No way! I can’t believe that.”

“And yet it’s the truth,” Katz said.

“What about the Flagrants? Aren’t they awesome? That thirty-seven-minute song of theirs?”

“Haven’t had the pleasure.”

It’s at the phrase “thirty-seven-minute song” that Franzen departs from the realm of gentle satire and embraces farce. This boy doesn’t exist in the real world, but wouldn’t he be hilariously annoying if he did?

And Richard himself is no better. His implacably cool demeanor, his claim that his goal in life is to “put [his] penis in the vaginas of as many women as possible,” his anti-corporate rant that goes viral on the internet (one of two rants that end up going viral over the course of the novel; am I the first to coin the phrase “deus ex technologica”?)—all of it reeks of the author’s lampooning pen.

Unfortunately, this looseness extends to other characters. Take Walter and Patty’s “golden-haired and pretty” son Joey, who is said to innately “possess the answers to every test a school could give him, as though multiple-choice sequences of As and Bs and Cs and Ds were encoded in his very DNA.” This is a weirdly illogical description, and its hyperbolic inanity infuses Joey’s character throughout the novel. In high school, he moves out of his parents house and in with his girlfriend, Connie, and her family. For a decade, Connie allows Joey all manner of physical infidelity, desiring only to be with him and fulfill his every desire: “Connie could not be fought with. Insecurity, suspicion, jealousy, possessiveness, paranoia—the unseemly kind of stuff that so annoyed those friends of his who’d had, however briefly, girlfriends—were foreign to her. Whether she genuinely lacked these feelings, or whether some powerful animal intelligence led her to suppress them, [Joey] could never determine.” In college, Joey becomes involved in a plan to sell Paraguayan vehicle parts to the American military operation in Iraq.

Which brings us to what really matters about a post-millennial Franzen novel: the size of the canvas. The verisimilitude of a teenager getting involved in military transactions is immaterial to the author’s greater point, which is that our personal, political, and even environmental freedoms are inextricably intertwined.

Joey’s exercise of his entrepreneurial freedom brings him hefty rewards, but also results in the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. Patty’s exercise of sexual freedom breaks her husband’s heart. Leading to a short-lived relationship with Richard whose end is described as not unlike that of America leaving Vietnam. Walter exercises his freedom by trying to save a species of bird that isn’t even on the endangered species list, resulting in the ironically-named Cerulean Mountain Trust shearing off the top of a mountain and selling the underlying coal to an energy company. Walter’s enthusiasm for this bizarre plan has been described in various reviews of Freedom as “weird” and “strange”; I’ll go with “inexplicably dumb.”

Walter’s passion for conservation is not, however, inexplicably dumb. His dedication to the cause is what makes him the novel’s only noble character. Before the book’s pat but touching denouement, we find Walter living in a lush, suburban enclave, where he spends his days begging the neighbors to keep their cats indoors to save the local songbirds. Personal questions about freedom (Is the desire for freedom the disease itself, or merely a symptom of the disease? Does marriage have to represent a sacrifice of freedom?) become political questions about freedom (Is the economic freedom of Americans worth more than the freedom of others? Is money a form of freedom, or the opposite?), which then become ecological questions about freedom (Does the freedom of a bird matter more than the freedom of a cat? Does the freedom of the next generation matter more than the freedom of the present generation?). Franzen reveals the ways that even the most insignificant issues are caught up in complex webs of conflicting interests, all of them relating to—say it with me—freedom.

Thankfully, Franzen eschews any simple answers, and his happy ending is a peaceful island in a roiling sea. Before Walter is reunited with Patty, he considers how perhaps he was not “made for a life of freedom and outlaw heroics” and needs “a more dully and enduringly discontented situation to struggle against and fashion an existence within.” It is enough of an answer for him, for Patty, and even for their children. But as for Walter’s dream, to conserve and protect the world that has offered us all so much freedom, Franzen fails to provide any answers.

Maybe this is the conversation we can expect once Freedom hits the stands. And the truth is that the critics are right: it’s a worthy conversation. However, even though Franzen poses all the right questions, it would probably be most encouraging if young people came down against the novel’s eventual endorsement of tending one’s own garden over the anxiety of involvement. Freedom speaks for its author’s generation, a generation that still had the freedom to choose ignorance.

As the cover of last week’s Time says, “Jonathan Franzen shows us the way we live now.” Now that’s a scary thought.

Tanglewood highlight: Pianist Garrick Ohlsson gave a haunting, introspective, and idiosyncratic performance of Chopin.

After some peculiar programming last week, Tanglewood’s current weekend got off to a rousing start on Thursday night as Garrick Ohlsson gave a haunting, introspective, and idiosyncratic performance of Chopin. The program, emotion-packed and filled with delicacies as though the pianist could not bear to leave anything out, included nocturnes and mazurkas, Ballade No. 1, and Piano Sonata No. 3, as well as Variations brillantes in B-flat on a rondo from Hérold’s Ludovic.

Although Ohlsson has built a stellar career as a soloist and chamber player with a huge repertory of other composers, back in 1970 he became the first American pianist to win the International Frederic Chopin Competition. Chopin has remained salient in his mind and hands for over 40 years, so long that he invites comparison with the great virtuosi of our childhoods. Unlike the bravura performances of yesteryear, Ohllson’s are intimate ruminations and, far from showpieces, sound almost as though the pianist is still exploring the nuances of a piece by himself rather than performing them before an audience.

In this bicentenary year for the composer, Ohlsson is playing special concerts devoted to Chopin all over the country and appearing in an internationally-produced Chopin documentary. His concert, like the one preceding it, was packed—both inside Ozawa Hall and outside on the lawn. His playing commands extraordinary attention and rewards it. Every creak of a folding chair became an offense.

Lucky New York, Berkeley, Seattle, and La Jolla, where he will play Chopin in the fall.
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Helen Epstein is the author of Music Talks in paper and on Kindle.

Jeffrey Kazin and Deborah Lohse in Fraulein Maria. Photo by Christopher Duggan.

By Bill Marx

The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard. Directed by Diego Arciniegas. Staged by Publick Theater Boston at the Boston Center for the Arts, September 2–25. Stoppard’s early (1968) exploration of illusion and reality, done mainly for laughs, tosses a couple of dim-witted theater critics into a confusing murder mystery. The cast includes Barlow Adamson and William Gardiner.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Music and Lyrics by William Finn. Book by Rachel Sheinkin. Conceived by Rebecca Feldman. Directed and choreographed by Stephen Terrell. Musical Direction by Jonathan Goldberg. Presented by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at the YMCA Building, Clarendon Street, Boston, MA, September 2 through October 2. The Tony award-winning musical comedy about the agonies and ecstasies of spelling among the adolescent set. The show will gain by being presented in the Lyric Stage’s intimate stage environment. The cast features Will McGarrahan.

Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage by Banana Bag & Bodice. Presented by Oberon, 2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA, September 5 and 6. The chic approach to finding an audience in uncertain times appears to be creative deconstructions/reconstructions, with eclectic musical support, of classics or popular works. “Digging into the roots of the original epic poem, this club-style SongPlay hearkens back to the raw and rowdy style of storytelling in the old Scandinavian mead halls – with a passion for fierce poetry and a pint of thick beer.”

Perfect Harmony. Conceived and directed by Andrew Grosso. Written by Grosso and The Essentials. Presented by the Stoneham Theatre, Stoneham, MA, September 9 through October 3. The New England premiere of a musical comedy about “the greatest a cappella group in high school singing history, seventeen-time national champions, The Acafellas. It is also about their classmates and female counterpart, perennial runners up, The Ladies in Red.

This good-hearted look at the “cut-throat competition of glee clubs and the even more cut-throat competition of high school” is going places: after Stoneham, the production will settle in for an open ended Off-Broadway engagement at 45 Bleecker.

Hard Headed Heart. Created and performed by Blair Thomas & Co. At the Charlestown Working Theater, Charlestown, MA, September 11 and 12. Company, “A rare Boston appearance by legendary puppeteer Blair Thomas, Chicago’s most acclaimed puppet master.” He will present a “trio of interconnected solo shows”: The Puppet Show of Don Cristobal, St. James Infirmary, and The Blackbird.. Any performer who combines the poetry of Wallace Stevens and puppets is my kind of artist.

Blair Thomas and his puppet friends in Hard Headed Heart. Photo by Kipling Swehla

Boston Marriage by David Mamet. Directed by David Zoffoli. Presented by the New Repertory Theatre in the Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown, MA, September 12 through October 3. I must admit I found this Mamet script to be more of a colorless curiosity than a “biting comedy,” but Zoffoli and a talented cast, which includes Debra Wise and Jennie Israel, may be able to juice it up. The plot deal with “two women of fashion” who plot and scheme to obtain their heart’s desires.

Bus Stop by William Inge. Directed by Nicholas Martin. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Boston University Theatre, Boston, MA, September 17 through October 17. The HTC opens its season with this broad, very 1950s romantic comedy about a cowboy who needs some civilizin’ before he can hook up with the vivacious gal of his dreams. The cast includes local stalwarts Will LeBow and Karen MacDonald.

In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Scott Edminston. Staged by the SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, September 17 through October 16. Fashionable dramatist Ruhl sees her provocatively titled play as “hovering at the dawn of electricity.” According to the Washington Post, the “current runs through the playwright’s meticulously factual fantasy, in which Edison’s invention has allowed one particularly dedicated physician to create an electrical device sure to cure the litany of ailments — malaise, crying fits, you name it — plaguing his female patients.”

Alice vs. Wonderland Based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Remixed by Brendan Shea. Directed by János Szász. Presented by the A.R.T. /MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training in association with the Loeb Drama Center, at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, MA, September 18 through October 9. A tag-team match that pits, according to the A.R.T publicity mavens, Lewis Carroll versus Lady Gaga. My money is on Gaga in this “psychedelic” adaptation of life “though the rabbit hole” that “seamlessly blends the lyrical whimsy of Alice with pop culture, high-octane physical theater, and the dynamic vision of acclaimed Hungarian director János Szász.”

Perfect Harmony: Clayton Apgar, David Barlow, Kobi Libii, Jarid Faubel, and Robbie Collier Sublett Photo: Carol Rosegg

Fraulein Maria by Doug Elkins. Presented by ArtsEmerson: The World on Stage at the Paramount Theatre, 559 Washington Street, Boston, MA, September 23 though October 3. More deconstruction. The target this time around is Sound of Music: “Set to the Julie Andrews soundtrack, Elkins’s affectionate humor shines through his seamless merging of modern and popular dance forms including hip-hop and ‘vogueing,’ as he reinvents this beloved 1965 standard into an edgy yet fun-loving sing-along cabaret romp.” The New York Times thinks it is a “mini-masterpiece.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. The Actors from the London Stage presented by The Arts At Wellesley College at Diana Chapman Walsh Alumnae Hall, Wellesley, MA, September 23 through 25. “Formed 35 years ago, AFTLS is one of the oldest and most respected touring Shakespeare companies in the world. Coming from such prestigious venues as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, these classically trained actors devote a large part of their time to working with students.” This time around five performers — Nicola Alexis, Devon Black, Matthew Douglas, Paul O’Mahony and Julian Rivett — take on Shakespeare’s romance.

The Shipment. Written and directed by Young Jean Lee. Performed by Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. Presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston in the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater, Boston, MA, September 24–26. The New England premiere of a show that claims to challenge audiences to confront their own preconceived notions of race. “Ranging from minstrel-like song and dance to stand-up comedy in the spirit of Richard Pryor” the script “skewers African-American stereotypes.” How do we know that Young Jean Lee means business? Recommended for mature audiences.

Five Down One Across by Michael Towers. Staged at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Boston, MA, September 30 through October 24. A dramedy that promises to be about “coming out” in more ways than one. The empowering plot: “Betty relocates her 85-year-old mother to her not-so-ordinary Brookline home, but now she’s got to tell the truth about her failed marriage, her mysterious pet, her prestigious career and her sixteen-year relationship with her ‘roommate’ Sharon.”

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pages, $25.

Reviewed by Harvey Blume

To my mind Michael Cunningham’s novel By Nightfall has one significant flaw, namely that the New York City he cares and writes so passionately about ends at the borders of Manhattan. He describes Battery Park, for example, where Manhattan abuts New York harbor, as, “the city’s only point of contact with something bigger and more potent than itself.” Has he never heard of or visited Coney Island, that somewhat storied strand along the Atlantic Ocean?

Of course, that point of contact between the city and something bigger involves going to Brooklyn, which, like the other boroughs, is for Cunningham and his characters only vaguely and remotely New York City. Cunningham’s not even sure those places are certifiably American.

When Peter, the Manhattan art gallery owner who is the book’s main character, does set foot in Bushwick, Brooklyn to visit an artist’s studio, he can think of nothing but an “Eastern European city” to compare it to. How odd, since whatever relationship Brooklyn may bear to Warsaw, say, or Budapest, it, and the city’s other boroughs, are precisely aspects and foundations of New York City itself.

That’s one quibble. Now the other caveat. Together the two help map the intellectual/geographical territory the book intensely and intelligently inhabits. Rebecca, Peter’s wife, says of a career path her troubled brother Ethan (nicknamed Mizzy) has proposed: “Computer Graphics. Don’t ask me what that is, exactly. In terms of how it could actually be a job.”

Rebecca and Peter are a married team in the thick of New York culture, she in publishing, a field not exactly exempt from the digital revolution. In a novel published this year and au courant in so many ways, for Rebecca to be clueless about how computer graphics might just imply a career path is even more jarring a false note than for Peter to act as if there were no New York beaches.

That said, within the confines of Manhattan’s art world, its true locus, By Nightfall comes alive in ways that more than compensate for its border problems.

Cunningham knows how to put his readers in front of contemporary art works, affording them opportunity to see, mull over, doubt, and perhaps, in the end, despite all doubts, succumb. Early on in the book Peter and Bette, an older, more established gallery owner, pay a visit to the Metropolitan Museum. Peter notes how quickly they march past the art of Rodin whose works are, “part of history, but new artists don’t revere him, no one makes a pilgrimage, you learn about him in school, you pass his sculptures and maquettes on your way to see the Damien Hirst exhibit.” And it is in fact Damien Hirst’s 13 foot pickled shark they visit.

Michael Cunningham knows the Manhattan art world. Photo: David Shankbone

“And there it is, the shark,” Cunningham writes, “suspended in its pale blue, strangely lovely formaldehyde . . . the lethal perfection of its shape . . . its maw, jagged, big as a barrelhead.” Bette chooses this visit to confide to Peter that she has cancer, perhaps more advanced than she cares to admit. She intends to give up her gallery and would like to bequeath to Peter one of her most promising young artists. This confession, however, much as it affects Peter, does not bring their contemplation of the shark to an end. Bette adds: “You let yourself think, oh, it’s a gesture, it’s just a dead shark, every natural history museum is full of them, but then you stand in a gallery with it, and, well . . . ”

This interchange exemplifies themes that Cunningham deftly summons up and balances throughout the book. Peter is alert to how, when it comes to art, setting is far from neutral: it not only frames but comes disturbingly close to calling art into being. Consider, as Bette does, the difference between seeing a shark as a zoological specimen and coming on it just steps away from acclaimed statues by Rodin. Later, Peter muses:

“Although gallery people don’t like to talk about it, even among themselves, this is one of the problems that can arise—the simple fact that in a hushed white room with polished concrete floors, almost anything looks like art.”

For Peter, the unmerited power of these hushed, white rooms can only be fully neutralized by works of such genius that they defy setting and transcend framing. His hunt for art on that order leads Uta, his gallery assistant, to reflect that Peter too easily forgets that “he is unambiguously in the art business.” Silently she upbraids him: “Do you understand, crazy old Peter Harris, do you understand that genius is rare?”

Some of the fantastically wealthy collectors Peter deals with—some connected to and eager to impress even more wealthy Chinese multi-billionaires—like to test-run artworks out on their estates. If a piece does not burnish this room or that expansive garden, if it does not add to a particular outdoor view of Long Island Sound, it is returned. This is the way business is done, and Peter cannot challenge it. But in his heart, he believes that:

“A real work of art should rule the room, and the clients should call up not to complain about the art but to say that the art has helped them understand how the room is all a horrible mistake.”

Peter’s problems arise when he finds in Mizzy, Rebecca’s brother, who has recently, in his vagabond way, turned up on their doorstep, someone with the power to make him conceive of his life so far—including heterosexuality, marriage, and parenting—as a horrible mistake. Cunningham writes that: “Mizzy is becoming . . . [Peter’s] favorite work of art, a performance piece if you will, and Peter wants to collect him . . . to curate Mizzy.”

Whether Peter does choose wayward and alluring Mizzy with his “sorrowful eyes” and “impossible grandeur” over Rebecca, who suspects nothing of what’s begun to happen between her husband and her brother, must to be left to the reader to discover. I will only note that the book concludes with a surprising force that drives away any preciosity or superficiality left over from hushed, white rooms.

Cunningham’s writes about Manhattan’s art world with canny insight and sympathy. By Nightfall discusses the sorts of shows that have since been mounted, at times amid controversy. Cunningham won’t get you to the beach but he’s splendid to be with in the museums and the galleries. What makes the book more than a finely-tuned, insider’s art guide is that that Cunningham anchors his story not only in beauty, as it is constantly reconceived and imagined, but in considerations of love, sex, morality, and mortality. The novel is an impressive accomplishment and a pleasure to read.

A surprise at Newport: British singer/songwriter Jamie Cullum turns out to be more than a pretty face. Photo: © LaNita Adams.

By Charles McEnerney, Host + Producer, Well-Rounded Radio

Both the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals take place at Fort Adams State Park, a few miles outside downtown Newport on a peninsula with a view of Narragansett Sound and the Newport Bridge. With boaters (okay, maybe yachtsmen) drifting by, ocean breezes, and seagulls floating above, it has to be the most relaxing and beautiful festival venue these days.

The 2010 Newport Jazz Festival opened with Brookline’s Grace Kelly, an 18-year-old sax player, singer, composer, and arranger who also boasts a mastery of stage presence well beyond her years. Her set was a great warm up for Jamie Cullum, the headliner at the International Tennis Hall of Fame where both Newport music festivals kick off the annual festivities (and formerly the Newport Casino, where the Newport Jazz Festival was born in 1954).

Cullum is a British pianist and singer who reminded me of a hybrid of Harry Connick Jr., Michael Buble, and Rufus Wainwright, but, to be fair, he is more charming than any of them. I was prepared to not like Cullum, thinking him to be just the latest in a recent line of pretty boys trotted out to save jazz, but he is a fresh of breath air, bringing modern, savvy music chops to jazz while giving jazz aficionados a taste of what’s going on in the pop realm. His own compositions bridge these various worlds. Since the festival I’ve gone back and listened to his recorded work, and there is no denying his talent as a singer or songwriter.

The following two days took place at Fort Adams State Park. In 2009 I found myself roaming the stages and throwing myself into every scenario to hear jazz of every sort. I will not pretend to be an expert about jazz, though I probably know more about it than I realize. For me, the Newport Jazz Festival is like a free buffet where you get to sample a little of everything and see what your gut likes. Last year I was surprised to find myself drawn to free jazz and more experimental sounds.

Wynton Marsalis at Newport Photo: © LaNita Adams

This year the line-up was impressive and, with three stages running from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. for two days, you find it hard to leave one stage to hear an artist at the next. It was not quite as well attended as the Newport Folk Festival (which was fine with me), but I heard again and again that the 2010 jazz festival felt more crowded than it had been for years, so that’s a good sign, especially given such a season of dismal concert sales.

Highlights this year for me included J. D. Allen Trio, whose latest, Shine!, has become a favorite of late. With Allen on tenor sax, Gregg August on bass, and Rudy Royston on drums, their set was angular and demanded attention in ways few other sets did for me.

Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society’s showcased their 18-piece band with a sound that mixed a few different eras in traditional jazz with ideas from ambient music and film scores. With their acclaimed 2009 release Infernal Machines, the outfit attracted a large crowd at Newport and delivered a set that probably plays better at an indoor venue but still kept the audience enthralled.

Without a doubt, another festival highlight was watching George Wein at the piano with the Newport All-Stars, also featuring Howard Alden, Randy Brecker, Bob Brookmeyer, Anat Cohen, and Randy Sandke. Swarmed by photographers, the 84-year-old Wein happily played piano; it was one of those satisfying moments in live music that you knew couldn’t be replaced by a CD, a DVD, or any sort of online experience. It was a joy watching Wein and company perform for the crowd at the Quad Stage and watching how humble Wein still is about his role in this prestigious festival.

Jazz legend Ahmad Jamal’s performance on the main Fort Stage was a text-book example of a pianist and his band using the beautiful Newport waterfront setting to create a mood and experience that casts a spell on your heart and mind that is hard to replicate. I’ve just started to dig into Jamal’s catalog, but I’m beginning to understand why so many feel his work is under-appreciated.

Cullum also performed on the Fort Stage to 10 times the number of the previous night’s audience, showing off his flexibility and ability to play to a stadiumesque crowd. Saturday ended with the Chick Corea Freedom Band, featuring the impressive line-up of Kenny Garrett, Christian McBride, and Roy Haynes, expertly presenting Corea’s take on jazz fusion.

Vocalist Gretchen Parlato: Brazilian jazz that sets a high standard. Photo: © LaNita Adams

Gretchen Parlato’s voice started off Sunday for me and set the bar very high for the rest of the day. Parlato’s delivery floats amid a sound that weaves jazz with Brazilian influences to create something dreamlike much of the time.

That mood was jolted by Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy, a lively performance that brought trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, and drums to the Harbor Stage. Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra were running on the Fort Stage with 15 players and guest Jon Faddis, who played later on the Harbor Stage. Faddis, a trumpet player, composer, and educator, leads master classes and clinics worldwide. A funny and engaging performer, Faddis teaches as a full-time faculty member at the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College-SUNY (where he is Artist-in-Residence, Professor & Director of Jazz Performance) and as a guest lecturer at Columbia College Chicago.

Frequent Newport performer Wynton Marsalis performed with his quintet on the Fort Stage, and also brought out special guest Dave Brubeck for one of those magical moments that festival attendees will remember for some time to come.

As the festival wound down, I enjoyed Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound, which incorporated Vandermark’s driving sax with Nate McBride on electric bass, Lasse Marhaug on electronics, and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums in ways that push jazz in rock, metal, noise, and funk directions. Jason Moran’s Bandwagon features the ambitious pianist’s mix of avant-garde jazz, classical music, and ragtime. Demanding as it was, Moran’s music provided a terrific way to wind down a pair of ears that had been expanded over the course of three days.

Chris Botti closed out the day and the festival on the Fort Stage with some humorous between-song stories and some smooth jazz with him on trumpet and a versatile support ensemble.

Chris Botti: Always Smooth. Photo: © LaNita Adams

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For information on other jazz events in Boston and the commonwealth, visit or Mass Jazz.

For those missed hearing the Newport Jazz Festival in person, it’s not too late to listen to most of the concerts online, courtesy of NPR’s recordings.

Sign up for the e-newsletter from Newport Jazz Festival to find out about the 2011 festival. Hear my interview with its founder, George Wein on Well-Rounded Radio and learn how they put it all together.

John Douglas Thompson as Richard III: Every Inch an Evil King. Photo: Kevin Sprague

I saw Shakespeare & Company’s excellent production of Richard III in Lenox, MA last weekend (through September 5 at Founders’ Theatre), with an exceptionally strong ensemble that was kicked into high gear by a high-energy performance from John Douglas Thompson in the title role.

It’s an unusual production, highlighting comedic elements whenever possible and often bordering on farce. As Ben Brantley pointed out in today’s Times, “the usual perplexing concerns of motive and Freudian pathology . . . are not at issue in this production.” Richard III is who he is: irresistibly, seductively evil, the Devil incarnate. He’s equally manic. In fact towards the end of the play, Thompson plays him as so unhinged by paranoia that I thought of Forest Whitaker’s portrayal of Idi Amin in the film The Last King of Scotland.

I attended the play’s first read-through, where Artistic Director Tony Simotes—just out of chemo for cancer treatment—presided with quiet authority. But he proved unable to continue directing, so it’s difficult to know in the end exactly whose sensibility has shaped the production. According to the program notes, Tony Simotes “conceived and adapted” it. Jonathan Croy directed with assistance from Malcolm Ingram. Since they all trained together at Shakespeare & Company and have enjoyed a long collegiality, their ideas blend seamlessly, abetted by the expert execution of a first-rate design team.

Simotes, Croy, and Ingram have been actors at Shakespeare & Company since the early 1980s. I’ve relished their work in multiple productions over the years, often together. Simotes, a former fight director, made such an indelible Puck in 1984 that I still remember his entry swinging on a rope onto the stage of the amphitheater of The Mount in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Croy’s tall, sardonic presence and Ingram’s more stately one have also left clear imprints on my memory.

Those decades of working together pay off in Richard III, as does the fact that several more charismatic Shakespeare & Company veterans—Jason Asprey, Elizabeth Ingram, Rocco Sisto, Tod Randolph, Johnny Lee Davenport, and Annette Miller—constitute the cast. These are artists who take turns as actors, writers, teachers, and directors in Shakespeare and in contemporary works. They are daring, flexible, and, each in his or her own way, charismatic.

Of course, because they are all graduates of Shakespeare & Company’s training program (the Ingrams have been teaching it for nearly 30 years) the text is, as always, unusually accessible. And these veterans are joined by the excellent Nigel Gore, who has become a company regular, and Lela Espericueta, one of the talented newcomers whom Simotes brought in from the University of Wisconsin where he taught.

I’ve grown to expect excellence from the company and have raved about John Douglas Thompson, Tod Randolph, and Jason Asprey before, so here I’ll focus on the sensibility of Jonathan Croy (pictured at left wearing a top hat), a tall, sardonic presence whose onstage antics have kept me laughing for years. Croy has done some 50 shows with Shakespeare & Company playing mostly comic roles but also Buckingham in an earlier production of Richard III and Sherlock Holmes in last year’s Hound of the Baskervilles and working with young actors.

In this Richard, Croy plays the irrational and the comic for all it is worth, focusing not on exploring layers of character or meaning but accepting what the characters say of themselves at face value. This production feels historically accurate, pre-psychoanalytical, and the pace is commensurately fast. Even the monologues whiz by. All the curses in the play as well as Richard’s hunchback made me think of Verdi’s Rigoletto at first, but soon thoughts of opera segued to operetta.

The Simotes-Croy production comes very close to undercutting Shakespeare’s mediation on evil, but it’s a fresh new look at a classic and well worth seeing more than once.
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Helen Epstein will be speaking on Memoir at the Lenox Library at 18 Main Street, Lenox, Massachusetts on Tuesday, August 31.

Appealing to the Young: Some say violinist Joshua Bell resembles Tom Cruise.

Given how old this audience has grown, programmers are faced with a dilemma: How many more times do they program the standards? How much new music do they dare introduce to the old folks? What can they dig up from the lesser repertory? And which stars will bring in the crowds?

I thought about all this again as I watched Susanna Mälkki bobbing energetically before a tired BSO and soloists Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk performing Mendelssohn. All three are in their forties but looked like teenagers among the gray and white heads. Mälkki and Bell are “whole body” performers whose personal choreography draws attention to itself (in the manner of MTV), sometimes leading the listener/watcher into and sometimes away from the music. And although it’s the 21st century and women conductors have been around for a while, it is still a novelty to watch a woman conducting the BSO, especially a trim and stylish one.

The visual has become dominant at Tanglewood. There are large screens placed in the Shed so that concertgoers can replicate the living room experience of watching PBS music specials, including close-ups of fingers and faces: like the Met opera broadcasts, this new practice at Tanglewood adds more items to the list of gifts and talents required for a professional career in classical music.

Conductor Susanna Mälkki: Elicited a phoned-in performance from the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.

Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk—both attractive, charismatic guys—gave the program their energetic best. They are at the top of their musical game and—a plus when the music is less than absorbing—they are fun to watch. Like Yo Yo Ma, Joshua Bell has become a pop icon. He also bears more than a passing resemblance to Tom Cruise. His playing can be ethereal as well as earthy, savage as well as sweet. He’s also clearly one of the best violinists around. Both he and Jeremy Denk underlined their generational and cultural difference from the formally-clad-in-white orchestra musicians by appearing in casual, black attire.

Mälkki is another story. The program, as she conducted it, was underwhelming. Mendelssohn and Beethoven are staples of classical music radio stations everywhere. Three of the pieces on the program are warhorses and the fourth, Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, forgotten for good reason. Mendelssohn wrote it when he was 14 years old. Unlike Mozart’s work composed at the same age, it is mainly of historical interest.

The overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written only three years later when Mendelssohn was 17, seems to be written by another composer. It is such an elderly chestnut, so overexposed, that it demands someone like Levine to reinvigorate the music as well as the orchestra that’s performing it. Mälkki ’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream sounded ragged and unbalanced, with the French horn entering like a blast out of nowhere. Despite her gyrations, the orchestra seemed unresponsive and produced a phoned-in performance.
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Helen Epstein is the author of Music Talks that includes a chapter on Bernstein and Ozawa teaching conducting at Tanglewood in the 1980s.

Hooray for Hollywood: TCM Host Robert Osborne, John Williams, and the Boston Pops at Tanglewood. Photo: Ron Barnell

Reviewed by Ron Barnell

The celebration of composer John Williams’s 30 year association with the Boston Pops Orchestra was brought to a gala conclusion on August 14th with the orchestra’s annual Tanglewood Film Festival night. Devoted to the performance of select film scores, with accompanying movie clips displayed on large projection screens, the concert presents an entertaining combination of the eye-ful and earful for the audience in the great Shed and for the large numbers of people gathered out on the lawn.

Besides the anniversary celebration for Williams and the Pops, this year’s film night sparkled because of the participation of the erudite host of Turner Classic Movies, Robert Osborne, who acted in the role of both host and moderator for the evening’s program. Osborne was particularly enlightening about how composers contribute in vital ways to the art of film, an ingredient to the overall experience that is often overlooked because of the allure of the images and the charisma of the stars.

The stage was set expertly for the evening’s movie selections: the show opened with a Williams arrangement of “Hooray for Hollywood,” which served as a background accompaniment for a montage of films from the silent through the modern era, the clips cut in a close rhythmic sync to the music.

After a short introduction by John Williams, Robert Osborne came on stage to narrate the first half of the program titled “Hollywood’s Golden Age.” Osborne related how almost all of the major film composers of the past had trouble getting their film music taken seriously mainly because in the concert halls of the day, “film music” was considered to be inferior to traditional symphonic fare. This bias thrived for years in spite of the fact that composers such as Miklos Rosza and Eric Wolfgang Korngold were European-trained composers whose own symphonies, concertos, etc, were regularly played on concert programs.

As an example, Williams and the orchestra played the evocative score by Franz Waxman for director Billy Wilder’s 1950 drama Sunset Boulevard, a classic Hollywood film about film, featuring brooding black and white imagery. Waxman’s dark, harmonic musical setting perfectly suited Wilder’s cynical tale of movie stardom gone rancid.

The Art of Movie Music: TCM Host Robert Osborne warmly acknowledges concertmaster Tamara Smirnova. Photo: Ron Barnell

Selections followed from Vertigo (Bernard Herrmann), Spartacus (Alex North), Chinatown (Jerry Goldsmith), and an extended suite of the lush, exotic music from David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre). It was an exhilarating experience: watching on a large screen the scenes set in the Jordanian desert, shot by cinematographer Freddie Young, as the Boston Pops Orchestra performed the score live underneath the breathtaking images.

The second half of the program featured music composed by John Williams for the films of Steven Spielberg. “Celebrating Steven Spielberg” featured the music from Jaws, Close Encounters, and, an interesting choice, 1941. Two selections from Empire of the Sun and Amistad proffered choral parts beautifully sung by members of the BUTI Young Artists Chorus.

But it was the playing of the thematic excerpts from Williams’s music to the film Schindler’s List that seemed to strike a particularly emotional chord with the audience, especially with the bitter, heartfelt violin solo, as performed by concertmaster, Tamara Smirnova.

The rousing night of film music in the Berkshires ended with an encore selection of music from Raiders of the Lost Ark.