標題: and exclaims "Maria [打印本頁] 作者: spqfnjzx 時間: 2015-10-23 03:30 標題: and exclaims "Maria
Bach Choir's imaginative 'Young Meister Bach' reveals a creative and rowdy teenage Air Jordan Australia composer
Bach that we all carry around in our musical minds belies the arrogant, cocksure lad the great composer was as a teenager.
"Young Meister Bach," a one act comic opera that premiered Saturday afternoon at the Zoellner Arts center for the 2014 Bach Choir of Bethlehem Family Concert, paints Louboutin Australia quite another picture.
With music by Bach Festival Orchestra principal bassoonist Chuck Holdeman and libretto by Bach Choir tenor Bill Bly, young Bach is portrayed at the peak of teenage restlessness, embroiled in street brawls, love affairs, and even jailed for breach of contract. The hour long production featured the Bach Choir, members of the Bach Festival Orchestra, and four guest soloists, all under the direction of choir director Greg Funfgeld.
The action takes place 1703 to 1707, and begins when Bach was engaged as organist for the New Church in Arnstadt at the age of 18. Within this slender chapter of Bach's life, the young composer gets involved in a street fight with a bassoonist named Geyersbach, falls in love with his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, and walks 250 miles to visit his hero, the great composer and organist Buxtahude.
The imaginatively conceived set, designed by stage director Christopher Shorr and co production designer JP Jordan, placed the 90 person Bach Choir on risers at the back of the stage, separated from the downstage set by large open picture frames. The choir not only sang, but commented on the action and performed as a character itself, as spectators in the court and street scenes, and as an actual Cheap Nike Shoes choir being conducted by Bach himself.
The small set served alternatively as a courtroom, choir loft, and jail cell, whose "bars" were organ pipes cleverly recycled from previous scenes.
Sumptuous costumes by DeSales costumer Amy Best, and lighting design by Touchstone general manager Emma Chong, achieved a lovely period effect.
The score seamlessly melded a wealth of Bach quotes with modern syncopation Nike Blazer and inflections of jazz, supporting both action and aria without distracting from either. In fact, Holdeman might have done too good a job here, with the music becoming almost a part of the scenery and not especially memorable itself. There were exceptions, though, which included joyous opening and closing choruses with trumpet fanfares worthy of the Magnificat, and a marvelous segue of the "Quodlibet" from the "Goldberg Variations" into a passionate choral number. Bach, balancing arrogance and conceit with introspection and wit. He might be a young snob, but a totally likeable one. In one scene, he unexpectedly meets Maria Barbara, sung grandly by soprano Leslie Johnson, and exclaims "Maria!" with the music aping the first three notes of that "West Side Story" classic.
Johnson and Chapman played off each other convincingly, but the real chemistry in this performance was between Chapman and bass baritone Brian Ming Chu, who played Geyersbach, Buxtahude, and a couple of minor characters. The street fight scenes between Bach and Geyersbach there were four versions, sort of like variations on a theme entailed some hysterical theatrics and wisecracking. Bach's meeting with Buxtahude, after a comical re enactment of his wearisome 250 mile hike, conveyed a true sense of the meeting of minds between two musical geniuses. Tenor Stephen Ng was admirable as Bach's cousin Walther, although his annunciation as narrator and Nike Cortez Online Australia Magistrate could have been improved.
Unseen but constantly heard were members of the Bach Festival Orchestra, notably keyboardist Thomas Goeman, whose performance was outstanding. Both Chapman and Chu did a sterling job miming performing on an organ or harpsichord, but it was Goeman who made it sound believable. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born again tours. But he also has the number for All American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.
JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.
KATHY LAUER WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother's Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid's performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.
STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8 tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.
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