Philadelphia Ballet will close out the company’s 2024-25 season with “La Sylphide” and “Etudes,” at the Academy of Music. This double bill, with performances May 8 to 11, presents a crowning work of the 19th-century romantic tradition, August Bournonville’s “La Sylphide” — with its evocative score by Herman Severin Lovenskiold. Also on the program will be “Etudes,” set to the music of Carl Czerny with choreography by Harald Lander.

Bournonville was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1805. His father was a dancer and director of the Danish Royal Ballet from 1816 until 1823, a position his son subsequently held for nearly 50 years. Throughout his career, Bournonville focused on elevating ballet’s artistic recognition, emphasizing sensitive, dramatic performances over mere display. He worked closely with composer Lovenskiold to produce a work of romantic fantasy that evokes the time and place of the narrative.

Czerny is one of the most seminal linchpins of piano pedagogy. He was a student of Beethoven, himself a student of Haydn. Czerny’s own students included Franz Liszt and Theodor Leschetizky, both of whom individually taught most of the greatest pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Czerny composed nearly 1,000 piano pieces, many of them technical studies that are still used today. 

Lander, born in Denmark in 1905, composed the score for “Etudes” in 1928.

For ticket information visit philadelphiaballet.org.

Saturday Double Bill

Two of Philadelphia’s most prestigious music schools offered local audiences two varied opportunities to enjoy the artistry of their students. The Curtis Symphony Orchestra rounded out the Curtis Institute’s centenary celebration with a dazzling concert Saturday afternoon, April 26, at the Kimmel Center’s Marian Anderson Hall. Later that evening, the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA) performed in a stunning production of Pietro Mascagni’s rarely-seen “L’amico Fritz,” a culmination of the school’s 90th-anniversary season.

The Curtis Symphony’s concert consisted of four pieces: Lili Boulanger’s “D’un matin de printemps” (“A morning in spring”); Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Opus 45; Maurice Ravel’s “Sheherazade: Three Poems of Tristan Klingsor for Voice and Orchestra; and Claude Debussy’s “La mer” (“The sea”). 

Curtis Institute of Music conducting fellow Mariana Corichi Gomez led the full ensemble in the Boulanger, an exquisite evocation of morning composed only months before she died at the age of only 24. Her sister, Nadia, was one of the greatest composition teachers of the 20th century. Gomez elicited delicate tones from her colleagues and sustained the score’s transparent texture beautifully.

Internationally acclaimed Curtis alumna Yuja Wang, was the soloist in the Rautavaara and Yannick Nezet-Seguin (Curtis faculty and music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra) was on the podium. Wang offered a glitzy reading of the Concerto — “all sound and fury signifying nothing,” to quote Shakespeare — and did the same in four splashy encores. 

After intermission, mezzo Judy Zhou was the powerful yet sensitive soloist in the Ravel, which was followed by a ravishing rendition of Debussy’s Impressionistic masterpiece.

Unfairly Overlooked

Perhaps because Mascagni’s one-act masterpiece, “Cavalleria rusticana,” is so very, very good, all his other works have been overlooked, almost in their entirety. I don’t know any of his other operas, but on the basis of AVA’s current production of “L’amico Fritz,” I would suggest that opera companies all around the world should take a second look and listen to several if not all of them. While one might quibble about the common sense of the libretto of  “L’amico Fritz,” Mascagni’s score is a true gem of vocal and orchestral writing that sustains its two-hour length without a moment of letdown.

Saturday evening’s performance was conducted by Joseph Colaneri. He drew sumptuous sounds from the AVA Opera Orchestra and brought out dramatic singing from his young cast. Tenor Angel Raii Gomez was a lyrical Fritz, finally overcome by love. Soprano Alexa Frankian was a poignant Suzel, in love with Fritz all along. Mezzo Katherine Dobbs essayed the “trouser” role of the musician Beppe with aplomb, and baritone Alex Mathews made a powerful David, the town’s rabbi. Jeffrey Buchman’s stage direction was focused on efficaciously making the most of the Warden Theater’s tiny stage.

For more information about the Curtis Institute of Music, visit curtis.edu; for more information about the Academy of Vocal Arts, visit avaopera.org.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.