Micah

THE COMPETITION took place in the castle of Ettlingen, Germany.

Two hundred and sixty-seven young pianists from 41 nations applied. One hundred and eight were admitted to perform over the ten-day period of August 5–15. And history was made by awarding the top two prizes in the younger category to pianists from the United States—one of whom was 15-year-old Charleston native, Micah McLaurin.

The biennial Ettlingen International Piano Competition, one of the most prestigious in the world for pianists under 20, began in 1988 and counts among its winners megastars Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Lisa de la Salle, and Boris Giltburg.

Eric Lu, a student at the New England Preparatory School in Boston, was this year’s winner. Micah took second place. He received a check for 1,000 Euros and was invited to give a recital in Germany next year.

Micah’s program included a Chopin Etude and sonatas by Haydn and Rachmaninoff—which you may have heard him play at the Sottile last year (read our previous story here).

Earlier this summer, Micah—a scholarship student of Enrique Graf at the Charleston Academy of Music—won the Arthur Fraser International Piano Competition at the University of South Carolina’s Southeastern Piano Festival. He also played recitals at Music Fest Perugia in Italy.

Paul Taylor Dance Company

COME SEPTEMBER, a promise of something new returns, including a tap on the cultural reset button after a hot lazy summer.

Although arts organizations still struggle with depleted budgets, staff, and incentive, our commitment to supporting them must not waver as they are the essential lifeline not only for our society, but for the collective soul. So get out your calendars and choose to attend some of these great dance events.

Here’s a preview of the 2010–2011 season:

Charleston Concert Association

CCA is bringing three dance companies to town. It is wonderful that this organization has remained so committed to dance through the years.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company (above) on November 3 at the Gaillard Auditorium. This is a personal favorite and, with the recent finish for the Merce Cunningham Company, Taylor is the last  pillar of the modern dance heritage that is left standing. Hailed as the “greatest choreographer in the world,” Taylor continues to turn out works that are relevant, irreverent, and full of style. Be sure to catch this stellar company for a terrific evening of dance.

Ballet Grand Prix

Ballet Grand Prix Excerpts from the most invigorating ballets performed by winners of the Youth America Grand Prix alongside renowned principal dancers of the ballet world. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Ballet Grand Prix is the “highlight of the New York ballet season.” February 22.

Romeo and Juliet with the Russian National Ballet Theatre on March 7. Under the artistic directorship of Elena Radchenko, the ballet theatre is declared to be one of the best in the world. The story of the star crossed lovers translates beautifully to ballet and should not to be missed.

Buy tickets online at www.charlestonconcerts.org

Robert Ivey Ballet

Fall Concert. On October 29 through 31, Robert Ivey Ballet will present its fall concert at the Sottile Theatre. New choreography by Olga Wise, Lori Hull, Douglass Smoak, Jon-Michael Perry, Angela Agudo, and Robert Ivey will light the stage in classical ballet, modern, and jazz mediums. The Company in Residence at the College of Charleston utilizes the talents of its students and faculty. The season’s mission is to provide audiences with dance that is “Inventive, Invigorating, and Intriguing!”

Peter and the Wolf is an Ivey tradition which is the perfect way to introduce younger audiences to the world of ballet. Performances at the Sottile will run from December 2 through 4.

Tickets for all shows can be purchased by calling 556-1343.

Charleston Ballet Theatre

CBT looks to have a healthy season with several musically inspired productions and a few family friendly ballets.

little Alice

Ballet Unplugged Live! on  October 14 features the Charleston Symphony Orchestra’s Yuriy Bekker and friends accompany CBT in a one night only benefit program. The chamber music of Brahms, Shubert, and Vaughan Williams will accompany four different ballets that showcase the talented company.

Alice in Wonderland will be performed at the Sottile Theatre on October 16 and 17. Jill Eathorne Bahr’s unique and colorful adaptation of the classic story interweaves ballet, acrobatics, mime, and theatre in a kaleidoscope for the senses.

Rocky Horror has become a CBT Halloween tradition when dance and film join in a wild adaptation of this cult film. The performance will be held at the CBT Black Box Theatre on October 22-30.

Angeline Ballerina

The Nutcracker will be presented at both the Gaillard Auditorium and The North Charleston Performing Arts Center. Set in the Low country in the 1860s, this classic continues to delight audiences young and old.

The Ellington Experience will be a collaboration with the legendary Charleston Jazz Orchestra. New choreography by Bahr will highlight Duke Ellington’s most brilliant tunes. Audiences will be introduced and reminded of the scope of the musician’s prolific career. At the Sottile on February 11 and 12.

Angelina Ballerina Goes To The Circus is part of CBT’s children’s series and will be shown on Jan 29 and 30.

Purchase tickets online at www.charlestonballet.com

Along with a chamber night, an orchestral evening, and the finale at Middleton Place, there will be the popular Little Mozart Circus at Francis Marion Square (with 14 tents) where children of all ages can handle instruments, get a lesson, play on stage, or just watch and listen. Four days of music appreciation, education, and inspiration.

We sat down recently with CMC director Sandra Nikolajevs to hear first-hand what to expect. In these 5 short videos, she talks about the festival, two of the featured works, her guest conductor and soloists, and the children’s circus—a special passion of hers where she offers great insights into the value of kids learning music.

This Year’s Festival

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Mozart’s Flute & Harp Concerto

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Beethoven Symphony No. 4

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Guest Conductor, Peter Shannon

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The Little Mozart Circus

There is a lake in the mountains of North Carolina that we travel to each summer. It is here where reposeful days are punctuated by lesser decisions of meals, water skiing, kayaking, or getting pulled around at high speeds on an inflated tube. The time is simple, the space is comfortable, and the feeling is peaceful. We can relax into ourselves and each other in a slowly vanishing Norman Rockwell existence.

The openness of the lake contained by the Blue Ridge majesty allows me to surrender to motherhood without the usual stresses of the day. I can float on the surface of cool water and fully sense what surrounds me. There is a distillation of gratitude and joy that the stage of water sets, and where dreams of summers past rest atop the lake in early morning mist. It is a time when the challenges of reality become profound more in their absence than their presence.

These are the days whose beauty is what some artists long to uncover in a song, on a canvas, in a dance, or in a poem. It is the warmth of my 14-year-old’s olive brown skin, the freedom of my 7-year-old’s dancing curls in the soft breeze, and the joy of my 11-year-old’s shriek as she plunges into the water from a high jump for the hundredth time.

These sights, feelings, and sounds move us closer together and show us what is essential to a life lived with appreciation for people we love, both near and far, in the brilliant performance of a summer afternoon.

But sometimes you go deeper.

Without really trying, you can stroll through exhibits and look at works on display. It’s a different experience, however, when you see a painting as a window into another world, another era, another life.

For example, all the portraits you see—those people had lives, experiences, troubles, and romances. They all went through life in different ways, saw the world in different ways, and died in different ways. Their portraits are snapshots in time, but the really good ones reveal more than what’s on the surface of the canvas. They show the broader life and character of the person. And one indicator of a great portrait is how far it allows you to  see.

In the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, there are several portraits of people at different times in their lives. For instance, one princess when she was about 10, and then later about 40. Another of a painter when he was in his twenties, and again in his sixties. In both cases, studying the similarities and differences was very revealing. You could clearly see things that had changed and some that had not, as is the case with all of us through life.

The same thing was true of some landscapes and seascapes. They offered a unique window into the place or era or episode. And they were about much more than composition, color, and chiaroscuro. In the best ones, the artist and the artirst’s technique was so transparent that it allowed a vivid view into the scene and story.

As a result, rather than walking through exhibits looking at the art, I found myself stepping up to some works as though they were windows through which I could see into worlds, places, and people.

Being transported in this way by art is what great masters always strive for and sometimes achieve. Even lesser artists stumble upon it without understanding what they did or how they did it. But they know when it works.

And so do we.

On Nevsky Prospect

AS YOU MOVE ALONG the crowded sidewalks and long metro corridors of St. Petersburg, you see primarily working and lower-class faces.

Upper-class folks are in their new cars roaring at high speed down the busy streets along with young “new rich” on stylish motorcycles (driving scary fast). Meanwhile, the middle class hardly exists in this upstart economy where the cost of living has skyrocketed out of proportion with most incomes.

The wealthy, who you see in the hotels, restaurants, and posh cafes, seem very self-satisfied, while the working class—which seems to have more opportunities than ever before (but does it really?)—pretends to be climbing the social strata. But it is hard to understand how they can afford an expensive pastry, much less a fine meal out.

Shopping for more

As much as the people—especially the young women—are trying to be attractive and fashionable, almost no one looks sophisticated. It is a far cry from Paris, London, Munich, or Milan.

The men’s suits are clumsy, the middle-aged women’s dresses are frumpy, the young girls look more tacky rather than glamorous in their 4-inch heels, and the boys are mostly in dirty jeans and t-shirts. Many people’s body language bears the persona of “new world,” but their synthetic outfits and garrish taste say otherwise.

This in contrast to a grand, classical city that looms above and around them. A city conceived in the best taste, the highest fashion, the most elegant sophistication.

In spite of the contrast, however, there is a vibrant spirit in the city. A spirit of optimism, options, and adventure. St. Petersburg today cannot be expected to return to the St. Petersburg of yesterday (before it became Leningrad). But you cannot but hope that the bustling city and its dynamic people will rediscover and reveal the essence of their true origins.

Looking good

Eric Hawkins

RECENTLY I have been writing about dance more than actively dancing, and since this blog is a platform on which to bounce my opinion to the small readership I have, I thought to take the first long day of summer to do so.

This was the first Spoleto where my fellow dancers in Anonymity Dance Company chose not to put a show together, for various reasons. For me, I welcomed not having a ‘gig’ since my domestic schedule was overloaded, and I was finally clear to see my performing days as over. My husband will never believe this; he calls me Brett Favre as I have stepped out of retirement before stepping into it with two feet more than once.

But now that I actually did not show up on a stage and have no plans to do so, I must consider what to do next. That’s why I dove into writing about Spoleto and settled into being just an observer. In the back of my mind, however, I felt the profound absence of an old friend. So before I cross over, I need to honor what has defined me for the past nearly four decades before I figure out what to become next.

Dance to me has always been a life force focus. As a young dancer, I liked the discipline required to learn movement, execute it correctly, and ultimately to communicate with it.

Merce Cunningham Dancers

Beginning in ballet, where there is only one way to do the steps with French names, it took many years to practice and train with a group of like minded people, and to be inspired by teachers whose beauty, grace, and precision shaped me. Later, as a teenager, when I saw other forms of dance, it was modern dance that most spoke to me. I saw a way of freedom with which to move and not just imitate what others did, creating my own ways of movement.

With dance I feel my most powerful and most intuitive self. It is a place where my mind, body, and spirit completely align and I am 100 percent present in every moment. After performing I can remember everything about what I have done. It is in dancing that I feel closest to God or some divine being much bigger than myself. It is a wordless poetry which I feel most honored to be a part of.

Martha Graham

For the past 15 years I have been a teacher and loved sharing my knowledge of movement with young people who usually find something out about themselves through dance. I will continue to train and coach young dancers as I feel responsible for the the education and appreciation of the art form.

With dance, the body leads and the mind follows and in writing the mind must lead with the body inactive, but there must be a way to inform one with the other. I know the wisdom of the body is where it must come from.

So now I must find a way to keep my love of dance alive and embark on a new writing practice. I expected writing to be a part of my “second act” as both my grandmother and mother were/are writers, and it is my lineage to use words to express myself. As my perspective shifts, I will explore  how to keep dancing in a way that leads me to the the heart of writing.

On Nevsky Prospect

STEPPING OUT of our flat in the center of downtown St. Petersburg is like a couple of blood cells entering the heart. There is a surge of energy as we look up at the massive cathedral across the street and get swept into a rush of pedestrians. Within seconds, we join the nimble dance of dodging oncoming shoulders, elbows, and shopping bags.

A few minutes later we reach the metro station where we go down long, steep escalators. (St. Petersburg is built on a marsh, so the water table is pretty deep, and the metro tracks even deeper.)

Down, down, down

As in most big cities, the underground is a strange world where everyone is together and almost no one knows each other. On a busy train, you can find yourself standing under someone else’s armpit, or seated directly in front of somebody’s crotch. And despite the constant rumbling and shrieking of steel tracks, everyone takes it in stride. This is life on the metro. This is how you get around in a city of six million or more people.

Then it’s onto the platform, sometimes forcibly, into crowded corridors where we head back up the long escalator which, compared to the train, is soothingly quiet. People on opposite sides—those going up and those going down—silently stare at each other as their lives momentarily pass and almost touch.

On the surface again and out on the street, the pulse of the city grabs us so fast that we forget about the metro and how odd it is as part of the en masse experience in a big city.

St. Petersburg is beautiful and invigorating, but we are always glad to step off its busy streets and into our simple courtyard, then up a few flights of stairs to our humble studio flat where, happily, we have everything we need. And where we can’t wait to venture out again.

Prosperina

OPERA-LITE at Spoleto 2010.

While I wasn’t assigned to deliver formal reviews of this year’s pair of what passed for conventionally-staged operas, I was able to attend both Wolfgang Rihm’s contemporary effort, Proserpina, and Neely Bruce’s modern reconstruction of the English ballad-opera, Flora. But since both of them are fairly short, single-act affairs (no intermissions), many Spoleto-goers are thinking of Spoleto 2010 as the year without a “real opera.”

Sure enough, we got nothing that you would call grand opera this time, though that was not by design. The festival was originally slated to present a production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine this year. But, as festival General Director Nigel Redden told me in a recent interview, there were some budget cuts this year–and one of the cost-cutting measures was to rent an existing production rather than stage an original effort. But the festival planners learne–too late–that the rented production’s sets and props were simply too big for our Gaillard Auditorium, and cutting them down to size was not feasible. So we were left with the pair of what would otherwise have been considered “side-attraction” operas (three, if you count Philemon and Baucis, the Haydn opera that was staged for marionettes).

But neither production gave serious cause for complaint. Spoleto never does anything half-way when it comes to any kind of opera–and so these productions both turned out to be interesting and entertaining affairs that were imaginatively staged, well-cast and beautifully performed. My purpose here is not to offer formal reviews; that’s already been done by my Charleston City Paper colleagues (click here for Nick Smith’s thorough evaluation of Flora, and here for Fernando Rivas’ thoughtful assessment of Proserpina). Instead, I aim to offer a study in contrasts, along with some of my own observations and insights into each work.

Certainly, the two works have very little in common–though, with a little stretching of the imagination, they do share the common theme of young women trapped in unhappy circumstances by dominant men, and who have no clue as to how to escape their dilemmas. The young goddess Proserpina has been abducted by Pluto, ruler of the underworld, where she is to be his wife–with no apparent hope of escape. Heiress Flora has lost her parents and been forced to dwell with her aristocratic evil uncle Sir Thomas Testy, who has ignoble designs on both her fortune and her sweet physical person.

From there, the works unfold in entirely different directions and with widely diverging purposes. Proserpina is an entirely serious depiction of mythical tragedy, based on an obscure monodrama by German master J.W. von Goethe that was written shortly after the untimely death of his sister Cornelia (who had been trapped in a loveless marriage). Its roots lie in both German dramatic and musical traditions, cast here in modern artistic context. Flora, on the other hand, makes light of its heroine’s plight, never taking it seriously–as one would expect from a frothy and comedic English ballad-opera: essentially the English answer to the German “Singspiel” form, its roots in the centuries-old European Commedia dell’arte tradition. Flora can also be seen as a stepping-stone in the English operetta tradition that reached its height of popularity with the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. The parallels are obvious: the ridiculous plots, the hackneyed characters, the frequent use of “patter-singing” and the theme of class conflict.

Music, stage design and characterization were also about as unlike as they could possibly be. Wolfgang Rihm’s often atonal-sounding contemporary score defies classification, fitting neatly into no particular musical style or “ism.” But its strong impact is beyond question, as it paints a bleak and forbidding sonic backdrop to a seemingly hopeless story line. In this respect, the music’ s effect approaches that of Pascal Dusapin’s Faustus, the Last Night from several Spoletos back–which I described at the time as something of a feverish, waking nightmare. The music also fit the set: a spare, sparsely-propped (nothing more than Pluto’s armchair “throne”) design inspired by the “preserved decay” of a room in Charleston’s historic Rhett-Aiken House.

The austere ambience is intensified by the presence of only two characters: Proserpina–spectacularly sung by soprano Heather Buck–and Pluto: a mute role that fell to actor Jason Bruffy. And Buck remained the sole vocal presence, save for the eerie-sounding voices the offstage female chorus–performed here by the wondrous women of the Westminster Choir. Nobody else was seen onstage until fairly late in the opera, when the heroine is joined by her hitherto offstage retinue of “Parcae” (Fates)–looking like a bunch of ghoulish kewpie dolls as they bring her the magical fruit (and its mother tree) that brings the only measure of salvation open to her.

By stark contrast, Flora’s non-challenging score–masterfully reconstructed from the original popular English songs of the day–turned out to be a delightful musical pastiche. In its light and bubbly course, no great demands were made upon either performers or audience. Background sounds–mostly dog barks and birdcalls–abounded. The movable set was lush, beautifully crafted and appealing. It accommodated a comparative horde of characters–often stereotyped according to class–and multiple singing roles, both major and minor. The contrived plot was spiced with plenty of energetic buffoonery, mild slapstick and genteel ribaldry. Indeed, the moods could hardly have been more at odds.

But, in the end, solutions (at least partial ones) are found to each of our heroines’ dilemmas. Proserpina–after eating her enchanted fruit–is granted a partial reprieve, permitting her at least to escape her personal hell for six months of every year. Flora ends up blissfully married to Tom Friendly, her suitor. And both productions included local twists: Flora’s historic 1736 production here in Charleston, and the above-mentioned modeling of Proserpina’s set after an actual historic local landmark.

And nobody who has written about these productions found cause to dispute that either of them failed to achieve success, each in its own distinctive way. Both were perfect examples of the rare and widely divergent sorts of art that are very much at home at a festival like Spoleto USA.

(Acknowledgments: illustrations for Flora costumes by John Pascoe)

St. Catherine’s Cathedral

AROUND EVERY OTHER CORNER is evidence of St. Petersburg being refurbished and restored. A good example is the churches, many of which were used as storehouses during the soviet era.

Lenin had adopted from Marx the idea that “religion is the opium of the masses.” He wanted Russians to honor the red flag of communism and determine their own fate through hard work, not to pray to God for salvation and assistance.

So church was out and something had to be done with these magnificent buildings which, with their onion domes, are such a familiar symbol of Russia. To punctuate Lenin’s emphasis on atheism, those symbols were demolished, neglected, or used for storage.

The small Catholic (St. Catherine’s)  cathedral pictured here lies along the middle of Nevsky Prospect, the main avenue that forms the social backbone of downtown. You hardly notice the church though because the broad sidewalk in front of it is an art market where local painters hang their work on large wooden stands. You have to look up to notice the cathedral whose exterior is still worn with chipped, dull paint.

The small chapel

But inside, the church looks almost new. Fresh plaster walls painted in crisp yellow, white, and blue provide a serene backdrop for ornate pilasters, ceiling sculptures, and floor tiles. As soon as you walk inside, you feel the calm and inner quiet of Self. There is a natural urge just to sit, look, and be.

On one wall you see a refurbished altar. On the other, you see part of an altar as it had been during the 70-year soviet era—reduced to rubble. In the back of the church on one side is this small chapel. It feels like a church within the church—an  innermost sanctuary reserved for the deepest contemplation.

Sitting in this jewel of a chamber, I wondered if perhaps it was where the religious, history, and art books had been stored, since the larger body of the church had stored mostly vegetables and motorbikes.

Something strange about Russian communism is that it actually never happened. Lenin’s vision, much as you may disagree with it, was relatively pure. The overwhelmingly poor working class of Russia should no longer suffer hardship for the lavish benefit of the czar and his circle. Lenin thought everyone should have equal opportunity, and he envisioned communism, not as a first step, but as the ultimate form that would have its basis in a socialistic model where everyone had what they needed and everyone had to work.

St. Catherine in the small chapel

But Lenin died seven years into his experiment and was pretty much debilitated the last two years by a brain tumor. Stalin then rose to power, and what had started as a uniquely bold vision became an increasingly corrupt whirlpool that most helpless Russians could not get out of—until recently.

Needless to say, today the churches are full of people—some working, some not—in hope of salvation and many other things.