Sunday, December 12, 1999
May Festival to stage two giant choral works
BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer
“I thought we should start the millennium off with a bang,” May Festival music director James Conlon says from his office at the Paris Opera, where he is principal conductor.
For the 2000 season (Mazy 19-27), Cincinnati May Festival will continue a proud tradition of choral blockbusters and world premieres.
Each weekend of the two-week festival will be anchored by a sprawling choral work for enormous forces. The first Saturday features Mahler's Symphony No. 8, “Symphony of a Thousand,” last performed in 1994 with gargantuan forces (450 onstage, plus eight soloists).
The second weekend's highlight will be Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, a massive work only performed once before at the May Festival, in 1975 under James Levine.
“I took two works from first decade of last century; I wanted to make that link so people can see what kinds of things seem to happen around the turns of centuries,” says Mr. Conlon, who will conduct all four subscription concerts of the 127-year-old choral festival.
In a festival rarity, a visiting chorus from Europe — the 130-member Concert Chorus of the City of Dusseldorf — will join the May Festival Chorus in the large works.
Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder is rarely heard, partly because it calls for enormous forces.
“It's early Schoenberg, which means it's a big, lucious, lavish, romantic work,” Mr. Conlon says. “For those who think they don't like Schoenberg, they should come and try it.” (Schoenberg's later music uses the 12-tone method, but the earlier music is post-romantic.)
The May Festival's first commissioned work of the 21st century will grace the second weekend of the season with the world premiere of “A Cincinnati Psalm” by Daniel Brewbaker (May 26). It is the fourth world premiere presented by Mr. Conlon in his 21-year tenure.
He and the composer knew each other as students at New York's Juilliard School.
“The only thing I indicated was that I wanted a Psalm,” Mr. Conlon says. “I was hoping for it to be a good companion piece to (Bernstein's) Chichester Psalms. I'm waiting for the results.”
Mr. Brewbaker, 48, a native of Elgin, Ill., has composed music for the Seattle Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Kirov Orchestra and Chorus in St. Petersburg, Russia, and others.
For the second year, a sixth May Festival concert has been added in a new venue. A special concert in St. Peter in Chains Cathedral (Tuesday, May 23) will feature the Concert Chorus of the City of Dusseldorf in an a cappella program.
Founded in 1818, the chorus' former music directors include Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. The ensemble records for EMI and Decca and has appeared on James Conlon's recent albums of music by Zemlinsky and Mendelssohn.
“I was very happy when they told me several years ago they were dying to come to America,” Mr. Conlon says. “I think we should do things that are inter-cultural. We rarely have guest choruses, and because of the Mahler Eighth and Gurre-Lieder, I needed to recruit.”
The Festival's annual concert in the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption will feature the oratorio Jephte by 17th-century composer Giaccomo Carissimi, performed by May Festival Chamber Choir for the first time.
For the first time this year, renewing subscribers will receive a preview CD of music on the program.
Returning soloists include sopranos Jane Adler, Margaret Jane Wray and Bridgett Hooks; mezzo-sopranos Catherine Keen and Florence Quivar; tenors John Aler, Dayton native Jon Fredric West and Donald Kaasch; baritone William McGraw, and bass John Cheek.
Making their debuts will be soprano Kristine Jepson, Japanese mezzo Makiko Narumi, Korean soprano Sumi Jo, countertenor Steven Rickards and narrator Thomas Stewart.
Subscription concerts are at 8 p.m. in Music Hall. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra is the official orchestra of the May Festival.
Artists for the preconcert recitals at 7 p.m. will be announced at a later date. Dinners ($25 each) will precede Music Hall concerts May 20, 26 and 27.
The 2000 May Festival season schedule
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