Adam Parker sends this review of “Burial At Thebes” …

Judge not, oh mortals, lest ye be judged.

The conflict between the “law of life” and the law of kings is among the themes at the heart of “The Burial at Thebes,” poet Seamus Heaney’s rendering of Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone.” The spare and effective production by the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company was presented outdoors in The Cistern Thursday night, the first of five performances.

The story is the culmination of Sophocles’ three great plays about the Oedipus saga (though it is thought to be the first of the three he wrote). In it, Antigone, Oedipus’ daughter-sister insists on performing the traditional burial rites over the corpse of her brother Polynices, who committed treason against the state by forming an army in Argos to wage battle against Thebes.

That betrayal causes Creon (brother-in-law of Oedipus), now king, to threaten the Thebans with death should they disobey his command to let the corpse on the hot hill feed the birds and dogs. So when it’s discovered that Antigone has rejected this command, she is sentenced to death. For how can a mere woman contradict the king? And aren’t the gods as concerned with civic law and order as they are with the sanctity of life and death?

Paul Bentall, with fire in the belly (and a misbehaving wireless microphone round his head) played Creon as though he were born hard-headed and paranoid. Obsessed with the idea that “money brings down leaders,”that the “walls have ears,” and that “personal loyalty must always give way to patriotic duty,” Bentall’s Creon is, as the Guard aptly explains it, “the judge (who) has misjudged everything.”

His performance invited the audience to hate his tyranny. In an ancient Greece used to warfare, though, such kingly decrees likely would have provoked ambivalence from audiences, perhaps even a little sympathy. But this production chose to be fairly black and white about the whole thing.

Catherine Hamilton played Antigone with fervor and smarts, clearly articulating the dilemma. She projected a moral fortitude that never wavered, even as she was able to convey in her words and expressions the hypocrisies of the circumstances. The scene in which Antigone expresses anger at her sister Ismene for her moral floundering and hesitation in appeasing the gods perfectly encapsulated the profound ethical questions while simultaneously conveying the emotional trauma of Antigone’s condition — and, by extension, the state’s. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll never forget a drum workshop I went to, oh sometime in the early 1990s, by Chester Thompson, the versatile session player and mostly rock drummer who had started off with the Mothers of Invention reading complex drum charts written by Frank Zappa.

Although Thompson had grown up in Baltimore with mostly jazz influences — from the stratospheric talents of Max Roach, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and Tony Williams — he left Zappa to join rock band Genesis. He said he remembered Phil Collins trying to teach him a rock beat. Phil said, “It’s steady. 1-2-3-4. Like walking.” Thompson said “Where I grew up in Baltimore, we didn’t walk like that.”

Cyrus Chestnut, one of current jazz’s most talented pianists, is also from Baltimore, and he doesn’t walk like that, either.

One of a strong crop of young lions that came out of Berklee School of Music (Boston) in the mid-1980s, Chestnut is a gentle, soft-spoken bear of a man with hands so fast they literally ran off the end of the piano tonight, chops worthy of the “Rach III” (he was studying classical music at Peabody Institute by age 9), and independent rhythms in each hand that boggled the mind. Not for nothin’ is his nickname “Nut.”

Mostly though, what struck me in his outing of “Sanctified Swing” (jazz meets church) at Gaillard Auditorium tonight with a sextet was his pure lyrical grace on the keyboard — in his arrangement of “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” (which also had great wall-destroying trumpet blasts), solo piano rendition of “How Great Thou Art,” and original tunes. I’d go into each tune but you can get the CDs (as he urged the audience to do). Chestnut is a formidable solo pianist. He is player of choice with the Lincoln Center Jazz Band, Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, etc.

To his regular trio of Dezron Douglas (bass) and Neal Smith (drums), he added soprano and tenor sax whiz James Carter and trumpetmeister Curtis Taylor for death-defying stretches of the ranges of their instruments — squawks, blats and the thinnest, breathiest high notes — and fine muscial conversation. And he brought out singer Carla Cook, who was lovely on one of Duke Ellington’s sacred songs.

He asked the appreciative audience to abandon “concert etiquette” and stomp, clap and sing. “We want you to leave happier than when you came in.” They did, although Gaillard being Gaillard, sound in the mezzanine cheap seats (where I was) was great, and sound downstairs was, in places, a muddled mess. I could talk about Smith (I love good drummers) but let’s just say he was cooking with the lid on and doing a mighty fine job of it.

The 11th anniversary of A World of Jewish Culture at Piccolo Spoleto celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Jewish homeland. The annual program …

“is especially appropriate for Charleston, with its long and happy three-hundred year Jewish history here,” Martin Perlmutter, professor of philosophy and director of the Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program at the College of Charleston, told SpoletoToday.com.

“Lots of Jewish culture happened here; after all, it was for decades, the largest Jewish city in the United States.”

‘When we began A World of Jewish Culture 11 Years ago, the goal was to highlight Israel’s 50th birthday,” Perlmutter said. ” We had no idea that it would be so well received. Now, 11 years later, we are celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday.”

Programs remaining in the series are:

SATURDAY, MAY 31

Ayala Asherov Kalus: A Coffee House Performance

Israeli singer/songwriter Ayala Asherov Kalus performs in a coffee house setting in Arnold Hall at the Sylvia Vlosky Yaschik Jewish Studies Center. In this intimate room, she sings her original music and lyrics and relates personal stories that led to the writing of each song. Coffee and dessert are included in the admission price. Sponsored by Starbucks. Arnold Hall, Jewish Studies Center96 Wentworth St. Saturday, May 31, 9:30 p.m.-11 p.m. AND Sunday, June 1, 8:30 p.m.-10 p.m. General Admission, $10

SUNDAY, JUNE 1:

9 a.m. “Exodus.” American Theater, 446 King St. FREE. Running time: 3 1/2 hours. Produced and directed in 1960 by Otto Preminger, and based on Leon Uris’ sweeping novel, Exodus is the epic saga of the founding of Israel in the days following World War II. Paul Newman stars as an Israeli resistance fighter, a member of the Hagannah, involved in the effort to bring a group of 600 European Jews from British-blockaded Cyprus into newly-partitioned Palestine, right before the United Nations is to vote on making it a Jewish homeland.

1 p.m. Poetry reading and reception for Ambassador Reda Mansour, Consul General of Israel in Atlanta. City Gallery at Waterfront Park, 34 Prioleau St. FREE. Reda Mansour is an Israeli poet, historian and diplomat. Before coming to Atlanta as consul general, he served as Ambassador of Israel to Ecuador. He is perhaps the youngest ambassador in Israel’s history. A Druze, he speaks five languages and is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mansour has published three books of poetry in Hebrew and will read in English. A reception celebrating Israel’s 6th anniversary will follow the reading.

3 p.m. The Musical Trio from Jerusalem, Koleinu, and the Jewish Choral Society. Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, 90 Hasell St. $10. The Musical Trio from Jerusalem will perform a concert of Israeli folk music and Klezmer to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israel. The program will begin with a medley by College of Charleston’s own Jewish Choral Society, a regular tradition of A World of Jewish Culture. Koleinu will also perform a very special segment of this concert.

6 p.m. Yuriy Bekker in Recital: Israel at 60, a Piccolo Spoleto Spotlight Series Concert. Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, 90 Hasell St. $10. Violinist, and concertmaster of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Yuriy Bekker, and pianist Andrew Armstrong, perform music by Jewish composers in a tribute to the anniversary of Israel becoming a state 60 years ago. This event is co-presented by the Yaschik Arnold Jewish Studies Program.

Read the rest of this entry »

One more Spoku (Spoleto haiku), this one from Ted Soderlund of Pitt Street,
Charleston:

Earth Sea Sky he rules
one more thing the monkey wants
Immortality

Spoleto is getting a good ride in The New York Times, which tells me this is, as I said on a podcast a few days ago, a good year for festival programming. Better than some years … and much better than last. Although last year’s conjunction of the planets Weill, Brecht and Glass certainly got the Times’ attention.

NYT’s Daniel J. Wakin is blogging the festival daily (the blog’s called ArtsBeat) and in his review/exploration of “Monkey: Journey to the West” today, he quotes Spoleto festival orchestra and opera director Emmanuel Villaume about the value of good programming and good buzz:

“Good programming ‘doesn’t necessarily represent the tastes of the team doing the programming,’ said Emmanuel Villaume, the festival’s orchestra and opera director.

“‘There is an incredible entertainment value of ‘Monkey,’’ he said. ‘The music is an accompaniment for the visual effects. I won’t say more. People who know about these things say it’s a good score.’

And he quotes composer Damon Albarn (who is also lead singer of the British band Blur) saying please don’t pigeonhole “Monkey” as a circus:

“’Monkey,’ Mr. Albarn said, is a ‘new kind of thing.’

“And it is true: most operas do not have acrobats playing crustaceans in shopping carts juggling parasols with their feet, or extended fight sequences like Hong Kong kung-fu movies, or contortionists wrapping their legs around their heads. And most circuses do not have pit orchestras, a narrative or opera singers.”

I’d like to second that emotion that Spoleto is eminently affordable. Those who say otherwise just haven’t checked it out. Piccolo Spoleto has many, many, many, many free events. Even The Big Festival has tickets as cheap as $10 (either Cyrus Chestnut or Bartok’s Piano Concert No. 2, I can’t remember). Please. You can afford that. Well, maybe with gasoline at $4 a gallon, you really can’t. But experiencing the High Culture and Art that we’re lucky enough to host once a year? Priceless. Anyway, this is just blather to preface news of another cheap ticket …

Piccolo Spoleto Spotlight Concert:

Tuesday, May 27, 6 p.m.

New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church

22 Elizabeth St.

College of Charleston Professors Lee-Chin Siow, violin and Natalia Khoma, cello, with pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky, in a program entitled SEASONS.
SEASONS will feature four popular chamber works: Piazzolla’s “Verano Porteno,” Tschaikovsky’s “Four Seasons,” Beethoven’s Piano Trio, Opus 1, No. 1 and the pianist Vynnytsky’s very own “Lost Tango.”

Tickets are $10.  1-888-374-2656,

www.ticketmaster.com

Gaillard Auditorium Box Office

all Publix Supermarkets.

Lee-Chin Siow, violinist, is a rising star with powerful artistic temperament and electrifying technique, hailed as “a violinist having superb control with tasteful flair . . .” by music critic Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer. A seasoned performer and the Henryk Szeryng International Competition Gold Medalist (1994), Siow has performed in more than 20 countries on four continents. Currently, Siow is the director of Strings and Professor of violin at the College of Charleston. (She has a postage stamp in her image in Singapore.)

Natalia Khoma, cellist, “…plays with masterful authority…magical and deeply touching…” (New York Concert Review), thrilling audiences around the world and capturing top honors at the All-Ukrainian competition (1981), the Budapest Pablo Casals Competition (1985), the Tchaikovsky International Competition (1990), and the Belgrade International Cello Competition (1990). Khoma is a Professor of cello at College of Charleston. (She is the only Ukrainian cellist to win at the Tchaikovsky International Competition.)

Volodymyr Vynnytsky, pianist, this brilliant chamber music performer has graced many of the great music halls of the world including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Steinway Hall, the Great Bolshoi Hall at the Moscow Conservatory, the Theatre Champs d’Elysees, and St. John’s Smith Square in London. Vynnytsky is Music Director of the Music and Art Center in New York. (A laureate of the Margueritte Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris (1983))

“Monkey: Journey to the West,” this year’s Spoleto talker, is a visual feast. It gets the kitchen sink treatment in the numbers and kinds of Chinese performance arts thrown in. I saw Friday night’s performance. A few thoughts …

Supertitle translations show that Monkey is quite funny. The 500-year old folk story of a spiritual quest is full of natural and supernatural people and beasts.

It’s 2 hours with no intermission, the anime is great, costuming outrageous (and sometimes scary … plus, Monkey looked like he’d just played basketball), painted sets interesting, and physical performances … martial arts, sword fighting, gymnastic aerials, high wire flying, plate-spinning, silk panel aerials, bamboo pole acrobatics, body contortion, fire stick twirling, umbrella spinning … amazing. Your eye doesn’t know where to go, and if you drink any alchohol before the show you might get dizzy. For me, it was a preview of some of the things we will see in opening ceremonies for this summer’s Beijing Olympics … on a smaller scale of course. For the Olympics, there will be hundreds of acrobats, scores of plate-spinners, thousands of singers …

The orchestra is amplified and so are the singers, so if you have a sensitive ear, take earplugs. The performance is not that loud but Chinese music’s forms and some of the rock repetition of rhythms, plus the squeals the monkey makes (I wanted to wring his neck) and the whanging of sticks on the stage floor (amplified by the wireless mics) can be jarring to a Western ear. (My ear is so sensitive that those things made me feel like I was losing my mind.) Mandarin itself, in fact, can be jarring to a Western ear.

Sometimes you just have to let art wash over you.

(See Alan Hawes’ photo gallery here.)

Today’s noon opening of Spoleto Festival USA 2008 at Broad and Meeting was the usual great mix of Italian ices, paddle fans, St. Michael’s bell ringers watching from the steeple, speeches, horn fanfares and smiling (if sweaty) faces. The bell ringers and the presence of Mayor Riley’s mother’s blooming oleanders across the railing of City Hall’s balcony are only a couple of the Opening Ceremonies traditions.

I was standing to the side near the wrought iron gate of Washington Park, so I could not make out the speeches (except for the prayer, which really isn’t a speech) other than those by the mayors — Mayor Joe Riley of Charleston and Mayor Massimo Bruninin of Spoleto, Italy, both of whom have voices that carry.

Bass Herbert Perry, a member of the cast of “La Amistad,” sang a stirring “Star Spangled Banner.”

SpoletoToday was right a couple of posts ago about confetti replacing balloons this year. After Riley made his “let the dancers dance, the singers sing, the children play …” proclamation of the opening of festivities, the all-white confetti shot out of a gun very near me and scared me half to death.

I got my wish for Chinese acrobats from the cast of “Monkey: Journey to the West.” Whoa. The contortionist was … spectacular. I have no adjectives for those who are able to bend over backward and put their face between their ankles … except amazing, talented, wow. The acrobat who did one-handed handstands on her hip girdle, which faced skyward, was also pretty … spectacular, amazing, stunning, mind bending.

Best of all … maybe … was that the brass band (sorry, I did not get a program, or a paddle fan) broke into “Saints” at the close of the events and paraded through the crowd, N’awlins-style.

Want to see a video? Of course you do. That’s why Geoff was there …

Due to popular demand, Spoleto Festival USA announced today that they will add a performance of “Monkey: Journey to the West.” The new performance will be June 1 at noon.

The festival reminds us: Called ‘Simply a piece of musical theater of the most spectacular kind,’ by The Times of London, Monkey is the remarkable brainchild of an international team of three innovative artists: Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng, whose Peony Pavilion achieved great success at the 2004 Spoleto Festival USA and the British artists behind the award-winning animated band Gorillaz, Damon Albarn (composer) and Jamie Hewlett (visual concept and animation.)

A huge success at its premiere at the Manchester International Festival earlier this year and subsequent performances at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, this ‘circus opera’ makes its American premiere at Spoleto Festival USA.

Tickets for “Monkey: Journey to the West” and all 2008 Spoleto Festival USA performances are available online at www.spoletousa.org and by phone at )843) 579-3100.

###

Or Cominciare il festival !!!!

Which means … Let the festival begin … we think.

Anyway, Mayor Riley will say it better tomorrow (Friday, May 23) when Spoleto Festival USA 2008 and Piccolo Spoleto 2008 officially open.

The place is City Hall, corner of Broad and Meeting streets. It’s, of course, FREE and open to all. Speeches will be made. Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr, of Charleston and Mayor Massimo Brunini of Spoleto, Italy, will welcome artists and audiences. The Charleston Symphony Brass Ensemble will play. The performance that goes along with opening ceremonies is always a SURPRISE, but it will be of the companies appearing in the festival. We are hoping for Chinese acrobats, but we will be happy with anything.

NO MO’ BALLOONS? Finally, To explain the photo above (from last year, taken by William Struhs) …

We hear that confetti will replace helium balloons in the Big Balloon Release that ends the ceremonies. Stop the blog! Why? Don’t know. The balloons usually get blown sideways or downward by the wind instead of drifting prettily up into the sky. That might be one reason. Also, as our local wildlife folks tell us, when those balloons deflate and land in the harbor or the river or the creeks, turtles and fish can eat them and choke. ACK!

Doesn’t matter. Balloons is a word that probably comes from the same place the monkeys in The Wizard of Oz come from.  But CONFETTI (small pieces or streamers of colored paper that are thrown around on festive occasions) is an Italian word!

Like SPOLETO, CAPPUCCINNO, GELATO and BRAVO!