Word: ballets
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Lyle Lovett and the Boston Ballet are not commonly mentioned in the same breath. Throughout history, country twang and elegant pirouettes have not been known to mix well. While such a combination might create a ground-breaking and spectacular work of art, it could also have disastrous results...
...Classic ballet is often a beauty to watch. But it is not often that a production wins over both the mature dance appreciation and the childish delight of an audience. Whether one has to brave the snow, the T, or the ticket price, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is definitely a performance worth the effort. Chances are that, from ballet connoisseurs to the completely dance-ignorant, everyone seated in the Wang Center as that golden curtain rises once again will not be even slightly disappointed...
Whoever programmed the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra's concert last Friday night clearly wasn't looking for crowd-pleasers; there wasn't a Beethoven symphony or Mozart concerto to be found in Sanders Theater. Instead, the orchestra gamely offered up a trancelike Wagner overture, a defiantly modernist Stravinsky ballet and--strangest of all--a bassoon concerto. While Wagner and Stravinsky are hardly obscure, it's not every day that you get to hear the bassoon--an instrument that ranks with the tuba and bass in ungainliness--dominate the stage...
...Bassoon Concerto was preceded by Wagner's Tannhauser overture, a taste of lush orchestral beauty about as far as you can get from Stravinsky's astringent, polyrhythmic ballet. This piece showed the archromantic composer in full bloom, retelling the legend of Venus and Tannhauser in a series of exquisite themes and shimmering orchestral textures. The string section shone in the controlled chaos of Wagner's glistening chromaticism. Student conductor Brian Koh matched the music's passion blow for blow, his emphatic gestures turning almost violent by the end of the overture...
Some parts of the ballet are simple and lyrical, such as a pastoral-sounding flute solo; others, like the bassoon's aggressive blats, are humorous. The most characteristic and memorable passages, however, are those involving several different rhythms and themes played simultaneously in different parts of the orchestra. That HRO could remain crisp and confident in even the most jagged parts of the score is worthy of applause. Katherine Evans' trumpet solos had a gorgeous tone seldom heard from student brass players and won her a well-deserved ovation. Friday night proved once again how lucky we are to have...