Category: ballet

About that footbridge to Music Hall

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IMG_8653There are a lot of misconceptions in the online posts I’ve read about the Music Hall bridge that the city now says it will demolish and rebuild over Central Parkway. The elephant in the room that people are missing: There is no easy and safe pathway to the front door of Music Hall on Elm Street if you park behind the building, in the Town Center Garage on Central Parkway.

If the city-owned bridge, which leads from Town Center Garage to Music Hall, is rebuilt, the renovation team is pledging to construct a passageway into Music Hall from the Ballroom entrance on the second level — the new back door.

Here’s yesterday’s story.

Somehow amid expenditures of at least $135 million, planners decided not to provide a rear entrance to Music Hall. This intentional omission adversely affects many of the organizations that make Music Hall their home. People have been deciding not to renew subscriptions or to attend fewer concerts because of inconvenience and pedestrian safety.Read More »

How the performing arts are turning to multimedia

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I’ve been noticing that more performing arts organizations seem to be turning to multimedia to augment their presentation. Opening this weekend, the Cincinnati May Festival has hired as its creative partner Gerard McBurney, who will “curate” and “design” two evenings dubbed “Dream Project” at the festival this year. It means adding visuals, projections, actors, atmospheric lighting — whatever — to enhance what otherwise would just be a performance by chorus and orchestra.

A May Festival performance last season in Music Hall, where the visual “spectacle” had no multimedia.

It’s being done around the country — such as in Chicago (where McBurney designed “Beyond the Score” events for the Chicago Symphony), and in San Francisco, where designer/director James Darrah has collaborated on a number of productions. I saw his vision for Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, which included screens, actors wandering over platforms, projections of the text jumbled up, lighting… To me, it all detracted from the masterpiece at hand and was just too much to absorb.

And yes, the Cincinnati Symphony is also experimenting in a three-year “Pelleas Project” with extra-musical elements, also designed by Darrah.Read More »

My 10 picks to see this Fall at CCM

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The arts and e-media school — College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati — offers an embarrassment of riches (the most performances in the state, I’m told) and much of it is free. The season starts Aug. 29. See the whole digital calendar here. (My list is just the tip of the iceberg.) For ticketed events, call the CCM Box Office at 513-556-4183.

Here are 10 picks that you won’t regret.Read More »

How do you find things to do?

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Dancers from Cincinnati Ballet
Dancers from Cincinnati Ballet

A reader asked me recently if there’s an easy way to find things to do — events such as concerts or plays. It’s an ongoing dilemma. Everyone seems to have their own calendar. I cobbled together a few ideas for him, but I wonder if there are other ways. Let me know!

The Enquirer’s calendar will send you a weekly “things to do” newsletter if you sign up here: https://account.cincinnati.com/newsletters. Also check cincinnati.com/thingstodo for daily ideas.

The glossy free magazine Movers & Makers has a very good monthly arts calendar, online and in free copies: moversmakers.org/

ArtsWave has a new guide that is pretty good. You need to scroll through it: http://www.cincyartsguide.com/

Cincinnati’s Chamber Music Network: sends you an e-mail if you sign on: chambermusicnetwork.org.

Got more? Let me know at jgelfand@enquirer.com or post it here! Thanks!

 

Music Hall: Finally, there’s a plan

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Planned configuration of Springer Auditorium/Michael Nyerges/The Enquirer
Music Hall: Planned configuration of Springer Auditorium/Michael Nyerges/The Enquirer

After more than two years of waiting, the group that is renovating Music Hall has finally revealed the plans for the hall. Yes, you’ll get 62 percent more restrooms and lots of new bars in the plan, now at $135 million. But what’s happening to the concert hall, Springer Auditorium? It has long been known for its grandeur as well as its fine acoustics. There will be a vast number of changes to the concert space. They include changing the cubic volume of Springer Auditorium, building new walls of concrete board inside the old walls, re-raking all three floors with new materials (concrete with wood overlay), moving the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra farther out into the hall on a thrust stage, putting the musicians on risers installing new acoustical clouds, reworking the orchestra shell, taking out about 1,000 seats, putting in new seats and changing the configuration of them, which includes getting rid of the center aisle.Read More »

Best of 2015

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Everyone loves lists. Here are just 10 of my favorite concert memories from 2015. As soon as I wrote them, I realized there were many more I had left out, from the superb concert:nova concerts to Xavier Piano Series, the Linton Series, and a wonderful Mahler concert recently by the CCM Philharmonia. 

Best rock fusion: Shrieking fans, long lines snaking to the bars, a crush of people surrounding a band in the lobby – those are things you wouldn’t expect at a concert of the 120-year-old Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra’s second annual collaboration in Music Hall with Cincinnati’s MusicNOW Festival, founded by Bryce Dessner a decade ago, rocked. The March concerts included the debut of Dessner’s indie-rock band The National with Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony – a first for both.

Cincinnati Opera's Turandot
Cincinnati Opera’s Turandot

Best sight gags in an opera: Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte,” directed by Robin Guarino at CCM in April, had bawdy translations and hilarious sight gags that drew belly laughs. The updated production featured a Mid-Century Modern house with a hot tub, and a couple of swinging Albanian strangers looking like John Lennon and George Harrison had just wandered off the set of the “The Magical Mystery Tour.” It was brilliantly sung by CCM opera students and Mozart’s witty music was buoyant and fleet in the hands of conductor Mark Gibson.Read More »

Cincinnati’s philanthropy: Why do people give to the arts?

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  • There have been some astonishing stories in the past week or two about Cincinnati’s support for the arts. The Lindner family is giving $10 million to the Music Hall renovation project. The CSO has raised $26 million, which will both build back the orchestra to 90 players and balance the books. Read how the orchestra turned itself around in six years.
  • And the ArtsWave campaign hit a new high.
  • On Friday, a visitor from New York asked me why there is such passion for the symphony, opera, ballet, museums and theater in such a small market? And why do people care enough to give and keep giving?
  • I said I think it goes back to those German immigrants of the 19th century– it’s in the DNA.
  •  What do you think?
    CSO officials annouce $26 million in gifts on Thursday in Music Hall
    joshua Bell signs autographs
    A fan takes a selfie

    Louie Langree and orchestra taking bows

Read More »

Three shows in two days

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Or, how I spent my weekend… Last night, I took in a ravishing concert by the Vocal Arts Ensemble in Memorial Hall. Here’s a teaser:

The Vocal Arts Ensemble’s survey of American music on Saturday night was a journey of pristine singing and expressive beauty. But it was the final group of spirituals — when the chorus whooped it up in “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel” and “Battle of Jericho” — that galvanized listeners, and we came to know the range of possibilities under new director Craig Hella Johnson. Read the full review here.

Soon, I’ll be heading down to the Aronoff to see “Peter Pan” with Cincinnati Ballet, danced to a sweet score by Carmon DeLeone. Then I’m hopping over to CCM to see the Academy of Ancient Music perform Bach’s Orchestral Suites.

By the way, did you see the story about the Corbett Foundation’s final gift? $1 million is going to CCM’s Opera Department.

Other news last week:

Cincinnati is in the running for a major conference of international museums.

The Cincinnati Pops is getting ready to go on the road in December.

And Jake Heggie and his creative team will be in town next week to workshop his new opera. “Great Scott.”