Raleigh, NC - Meymandi Concert Hall - April 12, 2013  Friday night’s moving performance of Johannes Brahms’ “A German Requiem” by the N.C. Symphony and N.C. Master Chorale not only revealed the work’s warmth and beauty but also served as an unplanned but fitting tribute to Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Robert Ward, who died April 3 at age 95. Ward came to North Carolina in 1967 to head the N.C. School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and later taught for a decade at Duke University in Durham, NC, the city ...

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Raleigh, NC - January 20, 2013    Texas-born tenor, Jay Hunter Morris, has lived out the showbiz cliché in which a last-minute replacement goes on stage to save the day.      Morris was at the Metropolitan Opera in October 2011, understudying the title role in Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried,” part of the company’s new “Ring Cycle.” Less than a week before opening night, Morris was told he would be taking over what is considered the most difficult and longest tenor role ...

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     The North Carolina Symphony began its 80th season in Raleigh, NC, in September 2012. I attended three out of its six Classical Series concerts in Raleigh between September and December, reviewing them for the Raleigh News & Observer. Below are the three reviews as they appeared in the paper. Overall, the concerts were satisfyingly consistent and engaging, with intriguing repertory that belied any dumbing down or popularizing of the classical series.   1.N.C. Symphony's Quirky Mix Hits ...

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Chapel Hill, NC –University of North Carolina – Memorial Hall      On October 30, 2012, Carolina Performing Arts presented the Mariinsky Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev, in the second of two back-to-back concerts. The orchestra and the conductor again upheld their well-deserved stature in an all-Russian program (a different set of Russian works was on the program the previous night).      The 1400-seat hall was filled to capacity. The big draw ostensibly was ...

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The North Carolina Symphony gave fourteen classical concerts on its 2011-12 Raleigh series. I covered five of them for the Raleigh News & Observer. Here are my reviews, as published, in reverse chronological order, starting with the May 11 season finale:   Symphony & Chorale End Season With Spectacle  (published May 14, 2012) Two 20th century choral works, spectacularly performed, made a rousing season finale for the N.C. Symphony’s Raleigh classical series. An unconventional sacred ...

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Raleigh, NC – April 27, 2012:      Raleigh-based North Carolina Opera finished its 2011-2012 season with a semi-staged concert performance of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” in Meymandi Concert Hall, one of the company’s strongest showings yet in its fledgling two seasons.      Born of two previous Raleigh-based companies, Opera Company of North Carolina and Capital Opera, North Carolina Opera has worked to find its proper balance in offering fully staged grand opera, ...

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Raleigh, NC - April 24, 2011:  Opera is the most expensive art form to produce and it has a reputation as entertainment only for the elite. Eric Mitchko, general director of N. C. Opera, was confronted by both challenges when planning the company's production of Gounod's popular "Faust," playing April 28 and 30 in Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall.      Although the company presented Puccini's "Tosca" last October in Memorial Auditorium with full sets and orchestra, the ...

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    Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh - March 25, 2011: The North Carolina Symphony gave one of its most creative and informative concerts Friday night, a "Composer Portrait" of John Adams.      Music director Grant Llewellyn was particularly keen to helm this concert, but had to remain in Wales during his wife's unexpected surgery. The search for a substitute familiar with Adams' complex, multilayered works ended happily with Benjamin Wallfisch, whose supreme confidence Friday belied his ...

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Raleigh, NC -  February 21, 2001 was a watershed moment in the history of the North Carolina Symphony, marking the opening concert in its new home, the acoustically splendid Meymandi Concert Hall. On Friday, February 11, 2011, the orchestra jubilantly celebrated a decade in the venue with two pieces from that first-night program, along with the last work it played in Memorial Auditorium before the move.      Grant Llewellyn's honing of the orchestra over the past seven seasons made the hall seem even more ...

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Raleigh, NC -  Andrea Quinn returned as guest conductor of the N. C. Symphony Friday, January 14, in Meymandi Concert Hall, the site of her last visit here in 2004 as a finalist for the orchestra's music director. Although Grant Llewellyn ultimately landed that position, Quinn's performances, then as now, prove why she was such a worthy contender.      Quinn wields her baton with exuberant confidence, precise in her cues and intense in her body language, vividly responding to each work's rhythms and ...

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     Like most performing arts groups these days, the N. C. Symphony is trying out innovative ways to counter sagging ticket sales. It hit pay dirt Friday night with its own version of Peter Shaffer's play, "Amadeus." A co-production with Chapel Hill-based PlayMakers Repertory Company, the program was one of the most inventive and successful in many a season.      On December 3rd, Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall was packed, the audience an abnormally broad mixture, including a ...

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     One N. C. Symphony programming concept this season is a series of four "Composer Portraits," each devoted to a single composer. The first, heard Friday night, October 22, in Raleigh's Meymandi Concert Hall, offered rare and alternative works by Tchaikovsky, played with considerable panache by the orchestra and insightful illumination from the soloist.      For perspective, the program began with the familiar "Romeo and Juliet" Fantasy-Overture. Tchaikovsky's first ...

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   Opera is the most difficult of art forms. The demands are so high that productions rarely succeed in every department, success being measured by having more parts go well than not.      The production of Puccini's gritty melodrama "Tosca" by the newly formed North Carolina Opera on October 15 (repeated on the 17th) had several successful elements. The large orchestra was satisfyingly rich and full, producing huge walls of sound for dramatic moments and delicate underpinnings in the romantic ...

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     Vampires are everywhere these days, from "Twilight" books and movies to TV's "True Blood," so it might seem a no-brainer for Carolina Ballet to program a new "Dracula." But the piece's origins and the challenges it faced on the way to its premiere on October 14th in Raleigh make its choice a little less predictable.      The idea came to Carolina Ballet's artistic director Robert Weiss after the company's "Picasso" program last October, ...

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    There was great beauty, poetry and refinement in the North Carolina Symphony's first Raleigh classical concert of the season Friday, September 24th. The orchestra had a gorgeous sheen, the soloists demonstrated confident artistry and the conductor offered intriguing insights. But a bit more verve and excitement would not have gone amiss.      The program was linked thematically by introspection, a major component of all three works. Grant Llewellyn took an elevating approach to Schubert's ...

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Durham, NC - August 8, 2010      On July 24, the American Dance Festival dropped the final curtain of its 2010 season on a mesmerizing scene at the Durham Performing Arts Center. Fourteen creatures with elongated heads and ashen skin made a ritualistic ascent of a towering staircase at the back of the stage, trailing their long red robes like reptilian monks as darkness slowly descended.      Shen Wei's "Folding," a signature piece from this popular choreographer's stunning ...

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Raleigh NC - May 30, 2010     Saturday's concert in the N. C. Museum of Art's amphitheatre will have a familiar ring to returning opera fans. As in last year's event, conductor Timothy Myers leads a full symphony orchestra, accompanying three well-established singers in arias and musical theatre selections. What's different this year is the presenting organization.      The concert is the first official event for the new North Carolina Opera, the result of a merger between two ...

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Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham, NC -  July 20, 2010          The American Dance Festival's "Past/Forward" program, now in its fourth year, has become one of the festival's most anticipated events. This showcase for ADF students offers reconstructions of notable works, combined with premieres by cutting edge choreographers, making for exhilarating evenings of old and new. This year's program was a must see, its heady mix of mystery, tranquility and vibrancy giving as ...

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I've recently returned from the Music Critics Association of North America meeting in Dallas, which included tickets to Jake Heggie's new "Moby-Dick" (May 8) and Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" (May 9) by the Dallas Opera in the new Winspear Opera House.  I would count "Moby Dick" a success and certainly a major step forward for Heggie as a composer. He he's made the piece feel unified, with many wonderful moments in the orchestration. The music holds interest and moves along with few ...

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April 30, 2010 - Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Engergy Center, Raleigh NC The N. C. Symphony's opera excerpts program Friday night could easily have been a serious, formal affair. But conductor Grant Llewellyn and vocalists Phyllis Pancella and Stephen Powell were determined to provide the opposite, turning this season's final classical series concert into a convivial, fun-filled evening that likely made a number of converts to opera by concert's end. That's because the two soloists proved opera need not be stodgy ...

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