Orrin Evans and His Band Conclude Summer Series
The final installment of the 2005 summer concert series at Pastorius Park brings local faves Orrin Evans and Luv Park to the storied Hill stage on Wednesday, Aug. 17.
Luv Park offers jazz fusion played with impeccable style and features Settlement Music School-trained jazz virtuoso and Mt. Airy resident Orrin Evans on piano. Evans, in the words of the New York Times, is “... a poised artist with an impressive template of ideas at his command.” He and his band have played to rave reviews up and down the East Coast, and Evans is fresh from another free live summer summer concert series in a park — Central Park, N.Y., that is, where he played with free jazz legend Pharoah Sanders. In 2000, he was voted “Best Jazz Success Story” by the Philadelphia City Paper. In recent years he has played with the Charles Mingus big band, among many others, and has released several CDs on his own Imani Records. Don’t miss what is sure to be a great show.
The Pastorius Park summer concerts are sponsored by the Chestnut Hill Community Association and the shops and businesses of Chestnut Hill. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. (rain location: Springside School). Concerts are free but donations are requested. Call 215-248-8810 for more information.
Flawless Irish concert thrills 1,000 at Pastorius Park
by MICHAEL CARUSO
As I approached Pastorius Park’s natural amphitheater last week, 15 minutes before the scheduled start of Solas’ concert, I could see even from a distance that the lawn in front of the stage was packed with nearly 1,000 Chestnut Hillers and nearby neighbors eager to hear the polished sounds of traditional Irish music. Even so, I was a tad wary — not because I hadn’t enjoyed the group’s appearance last year but for the very reason that I enjoyed it so much, I wondered if I’d like it so much again.
I needn’t have been concerned. Solas not only delivered on the promise of their past performance but even surpassed the expectations built upon it. In a program that casually followed the roster printed on paper, the five-member ensemble sang and played with an admirable technical precision and a rare appreciation for sonic beauty.
Seamus Egan, Winifred Horan, Mick McAuley, Deirdre Scanlon and Eamon McElholm are masters of many instruments: flute, tenor banjo, mandolin, tin whistle, guitar, bodhran, fiddle, button and piano accordion, concertina, low whistle and keyboards — plus vocals. From that list, you’d have a right to expect and fear a cacophony of noise rather than a blend of timbres. And yet your fears would have proven groundless last Wednesday evening because Solas’ collective sensitivity to textural balance is so acute that never did we hear anything other than a well conceived and flawlessly executed voicing of instruments.
I was particularly impressed by Scanlon’s lead vocals. She sang with effortless clarity of tone and phrased with lyrical intensity. Horan’s fiddle playing was no less admirable for the brilliance of her bowing and the inventiveness of her melodic improvisations. With their partners, they traversed a broad range of moods and explored a deep well of emotions, covering the full spectrum of human experience, both individual and societal.
ROXBOROUGH OPERA
The Delaware Valley Opera Company is bringing its 25th season of productions at the Hermitage Mansion in Roxborough to a close with a splendid presentation of Gaetano Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love. With the weather cooperating for opening night this past Saturday, music director Benjamin Blozan and stage director James Weist collaborated to give local audiences both the lyrical beauty of Donizetti’s music and the good-natured nonsense of Felice Romani’s Italian libretto (here translated into English by Ruth & Thomas Martin) in a perfect balance that enabled each to enhance the other.
The plot of Elixir revolves around the slightly absurd efforts of country bumpkin Nemorino to woo and marry Adina, one of those rare examples of an independent and independently wealthy young woman in 19th century rural Italy. Apparently, she not only owns a farm but seems to exert a great deal of influence throughout her little village. And, or course, she’s a great beauty, as well. Naturally, when a brigade of soldiers enters the town square, it’s to Adina that brazenly boastful Sergeant Belcore directs his attentions. When Adina shows signs of succumbing to his undeniable physical charms, Nemorino is driven to near distraction — that nearby distraction being the arrival of Dr. Dulcamara, the archetypical quack doctor with a potion for every ailment and an elixir for every desire.
The success or failure of any mounting of The Elixir of Love — or any other similar Italian comic opera, for that matter — rises or falls on the pace established and maintained by its stage director. Whereas French comic operas of the same era require even more charm and sophistication than either or both Maurice Chevalier and Charles Boyer could muster, Italian comic operas demand that the audience never be given enough time to stop and think that none of this silliness even approaches making sense. And yet, if the tempo is hurried beyond a certain speed, then the audience never has the chance to enjoy its laughter at the zaniness onstage.
The success of James Weist’s stage direction was that it kept the pace going with an energetic consistency that provided sufficient breathing room for laughter without sacrificing the leisure for reflection. The result was a sense of hilarity that projected the naiveté of the characters as it allowed the audience to laugh with the plot’s humor but without laughing at the individuals.
Benjamin Blozan’s music direction was topnotch from start to finish. He proved himself an excellent pianist, offering the kind of vibrant instrumental support for his singers that enabled all of them to perform at their very best. This was especially noticeable in the work of the chorus Saturday night. Elixir’s score includes a great deal of choral writing, some of it far from simple, yet the singing and acting of the chorus was both musically expressive and theatrically convincing.
Soprano Haley Conard made a naughty yet lovely Adina. Her voice was timbrally clear and efficaciously projected, and she shaped her phrases with vitality and elegance as she caught the role’s compassionate decency beneath its superficial sauciness. Tenor Jay Anstee was a marvelous Nemorino, balancing romantic ardor with rustic buffoonery and singing with tonal brilliance and touching sentimentality.
Baritone Jeffrey Chapman was an excellent Belcore. His own good looks made his conceit mildly understandable. He delineated the sergeant’s swagger with something nearing appeal and sang in a well-rounded tone that brimmed over with self-satisfaction. Baritone Milo Morris nearly stole the show with his hysterically exaggerated but dramatically appropriate portrayal of Dulcamara. Without even so much as a nod in the direction of honest salesmanship, he hoodwinked Nemorino so totally that the audience was on his side — not the least reason being that he sang with the kind of visceral immediacy that makes opera so special when it works.
And it’s certainly working at the Hermitage Mansion with The Elixir of Love, which can be seen August 11 and 13 at 8 p.m.
