February 15 & 16, 2025
Jones Hall
Houston, Texas – USA
Houston Symphony, Juraj Valčuha, conductor; Gábor Bretz, baritone (Bluebeard); Ekaterina Gubanova, mezzo-soprano (Judith); Matthew Webb, lighting designer; Erin Earle Fleming, co-lighting designer; Anna Van Vleet, assistant lighting designer.
Unsuk CHIN: Introduction to Scene 5 (“A Mad Tea Party”) from Alice in Wonderland (2007)
Sergei PROKOFIEV: Suite No. 2 from The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33Bis (1921-24)
Benjamin BRITTEN: “Four Sea Interludes” from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a (1945)
Béla BARTÓK: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Op. 11 (1911-18)
Lawrence Wheeler | 18 FEB 2025
Last week, Music Director Juraj Valčuha led a concert of operatic works by Italian composers. Again highlighting his love of opera and showcasing virtuosic playing by the Houston Symphony, he returned to Jones Hall to lead a program of music from 20th-century operas by Russian, British, and Hungarian composers, as well as a 21st-century piece by South Korean composer Unsuk Chin. Represented were two of the greatest operas of the 20th century: Peter Grimes and Duke Bluebeard’s Castle.
Unsuk Chin has won numerous awards for her compositions, which have been performed by noted orchestras and conductors around the world. Her only opera, Alice in Wonderland, was premiered in 2007. Portraying the nonsensical Mad Hatter’s chaotic tea party, “A Mad Tea Party” bursts forth with a perpetual motion in the violins. This is fitting since the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse are trapped in perpetual tea-time. Frenetic and playful, the piece sounds as if it has so many notes per square inch that you would need a magnifying glass to read it. The violin flurry is soon accompanied by a melody in the violas. In a three-minute flash, the piece is over. Valčuha led a taut performance.
Prokofiev selected pieces from his opera The Love of Three Oranges to form an orchestral suite. His finely detailed and brilliant orchestrations offer a kaleidoscope of colors, including two harps and seven percussionists. This evening saw an added double bass, making a total of eight basses on stage. Hearing more resonance at the bottom of the spectrum proves that a single player can make a difference. Valčuha led a spotless performance that was well-prepared and executed. The famous “March” was incisively played by the brass section, lovely string solos were featured in “The Prince and the Princess,” and “The Escape” was a technical tour de force.
Peter Grimes was Britten’s greatest operatic success and remains in the standard repertoire. The Four Sea Interludes–“Dawn,” “Sunday Morning,” “Moonlight,” and “Storm”–are taken from the opera and demonstrate Britten’s highly original and colorful orchestrations, such as having three layers of sound. As one vivid example of his approach to musical layering, “Dawn” has high flutes and violins describing a still and gray atmosphere while clarinets and violas make fluttering seagull sounds before low brass chords finally signal sunrise. In this and the middle movements, Valčuha drew expressive tone color from the orchestra. “Storm” gradually grew in intensity until it reached a thunderous climax. In the Interludes, Valčuha had total control over the dynamic range, with the musicians gaining inspiration from his musical direction.
Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is a one-act opera to a Hungarian libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs. Bartók uses symbolism to show parallels between unconscious motivation and fate. It was written in the Belle Époque before World War I and during the time of Jung and Freud and the rise of psychoanalysis. One of the great operas of the 20th century, the grisly tale has only two characters and a single location, making it feasible to present the work in concert version. Coming the day after Valentine’s Day, the plot possibly raised some eyebrows.
Bartók’s dark and turbulent score explores and expresses the innermost reaches of the mind. Being intensely private himself, Bartók could express in music what he could not in words. He dedicated the opera to his wife, 12 years his junior, whom he married when she was 16.
This evening’s performance was accompanied by lighting created by three listed designers. The primary lighting color was red (signifying blood), with touches of blue around the perimeter and a pale yellow color suggesting light. There were no features that identified doors, locks, keys, the castle’s torture chamber, or its treasures. Traditional staging includes seven huge black doors, which, when opened, stream symbolically colored light– blood-red, yellowish-red, golden, bluish-green, white (including “blue mountains”), darkness, and silvery (“silver like the moon”). The back wall of the recently renovated Jones Hall has 15 vertical wood panels, making it possible to have pairs of panels represent the seven doors in Bluebeard’s castle along with appropriately colored lighting. The symphony’s production of Salome last June included stunning scenic projections, stylized costumes, theatrical lighting, and custom-built design and staging elements to immerse and transport the audience. Visually, this was pale by comparison, with many lost opportunities to describe and illuminate (literally) the dramatic elements.
Sonically, the performance was fantastic. Valčuha led a detailed and cohesive performance, with colors as dark as a Rothko painting. The strings often played in unison while the woodwinds provided color and flashes of light. Of note was Mark Nuccio’s burnished clarinet tone. Dynamics had a very wide range, at times thunderous. Dissonances prevailed, but massive tonal block chords were especially impressive.
Baritone Gábor Bretz sang with unforced power and clarity, effectively portraying Bluebeard’s menacing and manipulative behavior. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova sang with lyrical elegance while projecting the naïveté of Bluebeard’s wife, Judith. The two singers had little stage movement other than turning to face each other but were able to project the conflicted characters as they inexorably moved toward their fate.
Under the direction of Juraj Valčuha, the Houston Symphony is moving inexorably towards ever-greater performances. Don’t miss out. ■
The concert was repeated on Sunday afternoon.
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Houston Symphony: houstonsymphony.org
- Juraj Valčuha: jurajvalcuha.com
- Gábor Bretz: imgartists.com/roster/gabor-bretz
- Ekaterina Gubanova: hilbert.de/en/artists/singers/mezzo-soprano/ekaterina-gubanova
Read more by Lawrence Wheeler.
