The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: “Into the Woods” is a big deal in many ways for the UW-Madison. There are five performances at the Memorial Union between this Thursday night and Sunday afternoon
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By Jacob Stockinger
Make no mistake.
The modern musical and theatrical retellings by Stephen Sondheim (below) of well-known childhood fairy tales do not offer your usual versions of Little Red Riding Hood, Prince Charming, Cinderella and Rapunzel among others.
Moreover the local production of the acclaimed 1986 Broadway musical “Into the Woods” – the woods being a dark, adult and disturbing Freudian metaphor of deeper meanings — is literally a big deal. (You can hear a sample of Sondheim’s music and supremely clever lyrics, taken from the 2014 movie version by Walt Disney, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
It involves both the University Opera and the University Theatre and Drama Department. The ambitious joint production – the first in a dozen years – took almost two years and involves over 90 people.
You can see the promising results for yourself in five performances starting this Thursday night in Shannon Hall at the Wisconsin Union Theater. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights; and at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Happily, there are a lot of ways to check out background and prepare for the show, which faced its own trials.
You’ll notice, for example, that the rehearsal picture below — taken by Beau Meyer of Elisheva Pront (Cinderella) with Jake Elfner (her Prince Charming) — was taken with no costumes, even though such photos were planned. But during the recent deep freeze and big thaw, Vilas Hall got hit with flooding from broken pipes and the costumes got clobbered, so such photos are delayed.
Still, the show must go on — and did.
Here is an interview with David Ronis (below, in a photo by Luke DeLalio), the prize-winning director of University Opera and other members of the production team and actors:
https://arts.wisc.edu/2019/02/15/into-the-woods/
Here is more information, including a plot summary, a cast and ticket information from the University Opera:
https://www.music.wisc.edu/2018/12/27/opera-theatre-sondheim-into-the-woods/
Here is a story from the Department of University Theatre and Drama, including interviews with the two women who play Cinderella:
From the Wisconsin Union Theater, here is the complex and complete ticket pricing information ($10-$40):
https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/into-the-woods/#additional
And here is a complete list of the student cast, who will sing under the baton of UW-Madison professor Chad Hutchinson (below) who will conduct the orchestra:
https://theatre.wisc.edu/2018/10/18/into-the-woods-cast/
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Classical music: With much of Wisconsin underwater from historic flooding, Britten’s opera “Noah’s Flood” seems timely. Can you think of other works inspired by floods and natural disasters?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Right now much of Wisconsin lies underwater.
This past week has seen record-setting rain and historic flooding along with high winds and tornadoes that have left many towns and counties declared official disasters.
Then yesterday, Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency for the entire state. More rain and thunderstorms are predicted for all weekend and next week.
The flooding is not on the order of the deadly and destructive wildfires out west. But the situation seems nonetheless the kind of emergency or natural disaster that usually draws some kind of attention of the national media — on a smaller scale something like Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria that devastated respectively, New Orleans, Houston and Puerto Rico.
But this time The Ear can’t recall seeing or hearing even mentions or 10-second spot reports about the flooding of a state capital on national news programs. Can you?
New programs always seem to focus more on weather stories when they occur on the coasts and in the south. And right now the media also appear preoccupied with offering ever more words about the deaths of Senator John McCain and singer Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul.”
But the situation got The Ear to thinking and searching.
Are there works of classical music inspired by flooding and other natural disasters?
And he doesn’t mean just music inspired by and celebrating calmer and less destructive water such as George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music” or Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony or Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Ebb and Flow” Music.
One important discovery that met the criterion was the children’s opera, “Noah’s Flood,” composed by British composer Benjamin Britten (below) in the wake of his own personal and home experience with floods – as you can see in the YouTube video below.
Can you think of other works composed in response to a natural disaster?
If so, in the comment section please leave the names of the work and composer and, if possible, a link to a YouTube performance.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Today is the summer solstice. Here is information about the solstice plus 20 pieces of classical music to mark the coming of summer
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ALERT: Today is the fifth annual Make Music Madison. More than 300 FREE outdoor performances will be featured at some 100 venues. For information about artists, kinds of music, places and times, go to: http://www.makemusicmadison.org
By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Thursday, June 21, 2018.
The summer solstice arrives in Wisconsin early today at 5:07 a.m. Central Daylight Time.
If you want to know more about the summer solstice, here are two stories from NBC and The Washington Post with some interesting information you might not know:
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/what-summer-solstice-ncna884991
Quite a few composers and works of classical music celebrate the coming of summer.
Twenty of the best-known are featured on a blog at the famous classical radio station WQXR FM in New York City. Here is a link:
https://www.wqxr.org/story/20-summertime-classical-pieces-maximum-chill/
The blog posting features many terrific sound samples, including such well-known works as “Summer” section from “The Four Seasons” violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi.
Still, some of the titles – including the famous Overture to “A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream” by Felix Mendelssohn – are not accompanied by sound.
That includes one of The Ear’s favorites, “Knoxville, Summer 1915” by the American composer Samuel Barber with words by the journalist and documentarian James Agee.
Here it is, in a much-praised recording by soprano Dawn Upshaw, in the YouTube video at the bottom.
Here’s hoping summer is better in this part of the country than spring was, what with record cold in April and record rainfall in May that seems to be continuing with disastrous flooding in June.
Happy Summer, all.
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Classical music: What music best expresses the “bomb-cyclone” and Arctic blasts?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Weather-wise, the past couple of weeks have been unforgettable and, in many ways, unbearable.
First, around Christmas, we had one bitterly cold Arctic blast.
Then after New Year’s Day came the massive “bomb-cyclone” that brought snow and ice, high winds and flooding, to the East Coast all the way from Florida to Maine.
Next came another Arctic blast – that put most of the country into the deep freeze with sub-zero temperatures that broke records over a century old.
(How, The Ear wonders, does the Arctic blast differ from the Polar Vortex of a few years ago? And who invents such colorful names that certainly seem new.)
Such extreme wintry weather has brought misery, hardship and even death to wherever it struck.
With luck, the coming week will see a return to more normal temperatures and more normal winter weather.
Still, the past few weeks got The Ear to wondering: What music best expresses such extreme kind of winter weather?
The highly virtuosic and aptly named “Winter Wind” Etude in A minor, Op. 25, No. 11, by Frederic Chopin came to mind. Its swirling notes suggest the howling wind and bitter cold while the minor-key melody has a certain dirge-like or funereal quality to it.
You can hear it played by Evgeny Kissin in the YouTube video at the bottom.
But The Ear is sure that many readers could suggest other musical depictions of extreme winter weather.
So please leave the name of the composer, the title of the work and, if possible, a link to a YouTube video performance at the bottom.
The Ear wants to hear.
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