Word: orchestra
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...final moments of the 1997-98 season's opening performance at the American Repertory Theater find an entire cast and orchestra of a musical in a unified and resounding chorus. With actors half in two costumes, a clarinet player nearly leaping off the stage and an energy that defies all known limits of family gatherings, it is a shame that such intensity is wasted on the absurd and over-the-top musical "Shlemiel the First...
...highlight of the ART's "Shlemiel the First" is truthfully the pit orchestra that will not stay put, The Klezmer Conservatory Band. This eight-piece ensemble grounds an over-the-top and shaky production on a solid yet raucous foundation. Providing more than enough energy to keep the musical moving while simultaneously sparking the audience into fervent rhythmic clapping, the Conservatory Band is the only element in the production which is successfully (and brilliantly) larger-than-life. Even taking time to march around and across the stage, the virtuosos never come off as contrived or absurd; they are the pulsing...
Under the direction of three conductors-Zalmen Motek, Evan Harlan and Timothy Steele-the orchestra pulls off the true to their style Klezmer songs and wildly outrageous parodies of Yiddish familiars with grace and ease. Particularly spectacular is Composer Mlotek's "Geography Song," a parody of a 1947 folk song by Aaron Lebedeff. Here Mlotek and musical adapter Hankus Wetsky are successful where Brustein fails; they masterfully adapt the familiar melodies and lyrical stories which are so much a part of Yiddish culture into vibrant and enjoyable pieces which augment and respectfully recognize their source. The music of "Shlemiel...
DIED. SIR GEORG SOLTI, 84, fierce maestro who prodded the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to the front of the world stage; in Antibes, France. During his conducting debut at the Budapest Opera, Solti's audience fled--not from his Mozart, but out of fear that Hitler, then in Vienna, was fast approaching. Never again. On the Chicago podium, he transfixed listeners, seemingly verging on levitation in his energetic efforts to draw tight phrasing and brilliant coloration from his musicians. His athleticism won the orchestra 23 Grammy Awards during his 22-year reign...
...Town starts with a thrill: a facsimile of the Brooklyn Bridge spanning the stage, with the orchestra perched on it. Three sailors (winsome Jose Llana, robust Robert Montano, gangly Jesse Tyler Ferguson) roam wartime New York and hook up with three gals (petite Sophia Salguero, glamorous Kate Suber, fireplug Lea DeLaria). They go places, do things, and the night air is magical, electric with fun. Wolfe brings Bergdorf mannequins and Natural History Museum troglodytes alive. Actors come with their own sound effects (taxi, subway, siren). It's like a vivid old New Yorker cartoon, animated by Tex Avery...