Music director laureate Paavo Järvi returned to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on Friday, conducting for the first time in the all-new Music Hall. It was just like old times. Well, almost.
Järvi’s energized leadership and a top-notch piano soloist, Alice Sara Ott, added up to a gripping program for the CSO’s first morning concert of the season. But even more uplifting than the performance was the sound that Järvi achieved in the hall.Read More »
Viewers will be able to go behind the scenes of Music Hall’s historic, $143 million renovation when CET debuts the documentary “Cincinnati Music Hall: The Next Movement,” 9 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 16) on CET.
Encore broadcasts will continue on CET and its sister channel CET Arts through November, including 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Nov. 19 on CET and 9 p.m. Nov. 20 on CET Arts. (See the full schedule at cetconnect.org/musichall.)
The documentary takes the viewer from the initial demolition after the May Festival ended in May, 2016, to the opening weekend last month.
In an interview earlier this fall, CET-TV documentary co-producers Don Hancock and Richard Wonderling said they aimed to film the construction site in all its grittiness, with dust and sparks, which would then dissolve away as people in opening-night attire arrived at the hall on opening night.
Above all, they tried to convey the special place that Music Hall holds in the hearts of generations of Cincinnati citizens, and its importance in the city’s historic and cultural life.
“Don and I needed a beauty shot of the grand chandelier in Springer Auditorium. We went up to the gallery and it was so silent – there was no one else in the house. It was almost spiritual. Just this pervading sense of beauty and tradition that stretched across time – across generations. Magnificent things happen at Music Hall, you just felt that. Vividly,” Wonderling said.
John Kiesewetter’s Media Beat review of the 60-minute documentary describes some of their fascinating discoveries as they filmed the 16-month project.
Cincinnati Ballet’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” over the weekend offered another chance to hear Music Hall’s new acoustics from a different perspective – in a ballet set-up.
Much as before the renovation, the best experience for concertgoers in terms of the sound depends upon where one sits. But you must also consider the “configuration” of the hall for the type of show that is being mounted.
For the ballet at the Sunday matinee, the orchestra was in the pit – as it will also be for Cincinnati Opera productions. It was a treat to hear the orchestra playing Prokofiev’s magnificent score to “Romeo and Juliet,” which I’ve heard many times as an orchestral suite in concert. It was led with a sure hand by ballet maestro Carmon DeLeone and superbly played by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Artistic director Victoria Morgan’s production was gorgeous in every way. As Juliet, Melissa Gelfin delivered a ravishing performance and her Romeo, Cervilio Miguel Amador, was the perfect romantic hero. But I was also curious about David Lyman’s comment in his excellent review for The Enquirer about “the many drawbacks of seeing ballet in Music Hall.”
From the gallery, the ballet performance onstage indeed seemed far away from the audience. The entire show took place behind the proscenium arch, with a very large orchestra pit in front of the stage. To me, the large pit detracted from the viewer’s focus on the stage.
But it’s ironic that this configuration – with the orchestra in the pit — offered the best sound I’ve heard this season for the listener. I sat in the GALLERY for the first time since the hall opened on Oct. 6.
Gone was the muddiness of previous weeks. The brass and winds were exceptionally clear and powerful. The string sound was much better, except in big climaxes, where it was easy for the brass to overpower.
The focus of the sound was also better. I recalled a comment from a retired musician, who thought that the orchestra needed a more embracing acoustical shell surrounding them on three sides. In fact, the walls of the pit may have actually provided that, perhaps the reason for a better sound.
Other impressions: The city has doubled the cost of parking in Town Center Garage this year, to $10. Parking in Washington Park Garage, owned by 3CDC, is now $15 for shows. I parked behind Music Hall and walked around to the front of the building. The weather was cold and raw, and I felt badly for the older people and children that I saw trying to get across the four lanes of Central Parkway to get to the front door. There were no police officers assisting, as there have been for CSO concerts.
It’s too bad that the ballet matinee was so sparsely attended. Whether the poor attendance was a result of not enough marketing, uncertainty about parking or the cold weather, I hope it’s not a harbinger of audiences to come. Especially now, in the beautifully freshened and updated hall, the dancers – and the orchestra – deserve to have a full house every time.
Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concluded their “Pelléas Trilogy” over the weekend in Music Hall.
My review of the CSO’s performance of Debussy’s opera “Pelléas et Mélisande” can be found today on musicalamerica.com. (Click here to read it.)
The orchestra’s “Friday Orange” event included some creepy visitors in the lobby, wrapping and unwrapping themselves.
The opera, presented in a semi-staged concert version, provided another chance to hear the new acoustics in Music Hall. For this concert, I sat in two different locations, as you’ll see in the review.
It was the first time the orchestra has performed with voice in the hall since the $143 million renovation was completed.
For this performance, the orchestra was positioned in a different configuration from those on Opening Night and last week at the Pops.
Next weekend, I plan to go to Cincinnati Ballet’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which will have the CSO in the pit for the first time. And on Nov. 4, the May Festival Chorus will join for yet another set-up.
What are your impressions so far? Let us know!
Acoustic: əˈko͞ostik/ (plural acoustics): “The properties or qualities of a room … that determine how sound is transmitted.” (Dictionary.com)
In the words of the dean of acoustics, Leo Beranek, acoustics is “the science of sound.” Things such as resonance, frequency (pitch), amplitude, wave reflections and delay times affect how we hear music, he writes in “How they Sound: Concert and Opera Halls.”
Music Hall, formerly made of wood and plaster-over-brick, now has concrete floors, walls moved inward and a stage that is now 12 feet closer to the audience. A few days before it reopened after its $143 million renovation, I met with acoustical consultant Paul Scarbrough of Akustiks in Springer Auditorium to find out how he and colleague Chris Blair have been making acoustical adjustments to what is now a new concert “hall within a hall.”
Question: Music Hall has very good acoustics, and you’ve said that your goal is to build on that. Now, how has the sound of the hall changed?Read More »
BLINK starts tonight with a parade from Findlay Market to Washington Park in OTR. What exactly is BLINK? Think Lumenocity on steriods. The four-night event, 7 p.m. to midnight each night, is a spectacle of light “projection mapping,” art installations, lighted displays, Cincinnati’s famous murals “painted” with light, and much more, along the path of the Cincinnati Bell Connector. There will be interactive displays for “hands-on” participation as well as live entertainment all along the 3.6 mile streetcar line, from Findlay Market to The Banks.
And it’s all free.
“It’s shaped around unity and the values we hold as a community,” says Timothy Maloney, president & CEO of the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation, founding sponsor.
But with 60 attractions spanning 20 city blocks, you need a plan. Take it all in (or parts of it over a few days) by planning dinner, drinks or a performance in tandem. I plan to go the Cincinnati Pops season opener in the newly renovated Music Hall — which is incidentally right across the street from many of the attractions, and right on the streetcar line. I might decide to just jump on the streetcar and hop on and off.
Click here to see the map or download the event guide.
However you decide to see it, you can be sure that BLINK will be like nothing Cincinnati has ever seen.
“CINCINNATI – A $143 million renovation of the National Historic Landmark pushed the orchestra forward, narrowed the room, and cut 1,000 seats. In the Cincinnati Symphony’s homecoming, the acoustics were still a work in progress.”
Read my first impressions of Music Hall’s acoustics by clicking here: “Old is New Again in Cincinnati’s Reborn Music Hall” at Classical Voice North America, journal of the Music Critics Association of North America.
I went back on Saturday for the free Community Open House, and was amazed to see thousands of people of all ages and some with strollers and wheelchairs, pouring through the doors and visiting every nook and cranny of the hall. Read More »
I was happy to be invited to appear on a podcast for WCPO’s “Hear Cincinnati” with host Meghan Wesley Thursday to talk about all of the activities this weekend surrounding the opening of Music Hall after its 16-month, $143 million renovation.
The Music Hall segment is about 27 minutes into the podcast. Listen here.
Listen Friday when I visit 91.7 WVXU at 1 p.m., for “Cincinnati Edition.”
And speaking about events, you can find the lineup of free performances and tours during the FREE community open house at Music Hall, starting with a ribbon-cutting at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday at artswave.org. You’ll also catch lots of free performances in Washington Park.
And be sure to take a stroll around the neighborhood to see the newly renovated Memorial Hall, the brand-new Cincinnati Shakespeare Theater and recently expanded Ensemble Theatre. All will be open and offer tours and more.
To save you time, here’s Saturday’s lineup:Read More »
