Spanish Fantasy

 I draw inspiration for my compositions from people, places, and emotions.

  

Janáček’s opera Jenůfa, at Severance

Daniel and I made our way to Severance Hall to see the culmination of The Cleveland Orchestra’s season, a concert presentation of Leoš Janáček’s searing opera, Jenůfa.  The opera is the primary event of the 2025 Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival, which focuses on the theme of reconciliation.

The opera’s story is grim.  Jenůfa wants to marry a man named Števa. Jenůfa’s stepmother declares that Števa may only marry Jenůfa if he refrains from drinking for a year.  Števa  leaves town to serve in the military and returns to drunkenly boast of his conquests of numerous women.  Meanwhile, another man, Laca – who happens to be Števa’s half-brother – pursues Jenůfa and, when she rebuffs him and tolerates Števa’s shenanigans, Laca slashes her face with a knife.  Unbeknownst to everyone is that Jenůfa is pregnant with Števa’s child.  After the child is born, the stepmother worries that Jenůfa will never be able to endure the humiliation of being a scarred, unwed-mother in their provincial town, so she commits infanticide, hiding the baby’s body under some ice in the nearby mill-stream.  Eventually, Laca is able to gain Jenůfa’s hand in marriage.  But the wedding is interrupted when the baby’s body is found and the stepmother is arrested.  As the authorities haul her away, Jenůfa sings of her forgiveness of the stepmother, because she meant well.      

I have to say, anyone who murdered my child, even under the best of circumstances, would be unable to earn my forgiveness – regardless of the prison sentence.  But this is opera, not real life.  

On purely musical terms, Jenůfa was very well presented.  Franz Welser-Möst is a master at pacing opera presentations, and he kept the action moving while allowing the singers freedom of phrasing.  In particular, Latonia Moore as Jenůfa and Nina Stemme as the stepmother not only sang extraordinarily well, but presented their characters with a richness that were noteworthy for a non-staged presentation.  That’s right, Jenůfa was given what they call a concert presentation – no sets, no costumes.  Instead, the singers were placed on a raised platform, which I suspect was done for reasons of vocal projection. 

And here we come to my problem with this performance: There was no reason not to stage this opera, just as there was no reason to avoid staging Tristan und Isolde two years ago.  Let’s not kid ourselves.  The Cleveland Orchestra is not lacking for money.  They received a $50 million grant from the Mandel Foundation several years ago, and donations from individuals and corporations continue to pour in.  In his essay included in the Festival’s rather lavish booklet, Welser-Möst refers to the success of The Cunning Little Vixen in 2014; so extraordinarily well received that the orchestra decided to present it again three years later.  But one of the reasons Vixen was so popular was precisely because of the staging.  While an elaborate staging like those done for Vixen and Pelléas and Mélisande would have been ideal, even a modest staging would be preferable to having the cast stand around on an elevated platform and sing from the score.  While the performance was very well received by the audience, I must point out that I have never seen so many empty seats at an opera presentation at Severance.

 

As noted above, the theme of this year’s festival is reconciliation.  Other events include a presentation of African-American art, a performance of Latin music by Chucho Valdés and his Royal Quartet, pianist Michelle Cann performing music from Chicago’s Black Renaissance, a Symposium on immigration & reconciliation, and a screening of The Royal Tenenbaums.  In an age when the United States in particular is becoming more economically segregated, when people are being marginalized, it is heartening to see a festival from a Classical music entity whose audiences are still overwhelmingly white and older. 

True reconciliation can only exist if there is justice.  An historical example from American history is Reconstruction, which was botched by Andrew Johnson and his successors.  The primary instigators of the American Civil War, including Jefferson Davis and other secessionists, never had to pay for the consequences of their actions.  Thus Jim Crow, the segregation of everything from the use of public facilities to miscegenation laws, and denying African-Americans the right to vote were allowed to fester for a century.  Even six decades after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, disparities remain – particularly with regard to income. 

80 years later after the American Civil War, the United States had another decision to make: What to do with West Germany after Hitler’s defeat.  The destruction in Germany was worse than that in the American South by orders of magnitude.  Denazification was no easy task.  Hitler’s government had not only launched the worst European conflagration in human history, it ruthlessly butchered large swaths of its own population, including Jews, Roma, Homosexuals, political opponents, and those with disabilities.  The Holocaust was planned by the Nazi elite, but ordinary Germans helped carry it out – and many more looked away, refusing to see what was clearly visible.  After the war Nazi leadership was put on trial, with many being executed.  Other Germans, from the prominent to the ordinary, faced time in jail and suspension of their careers.  Numerous lower-level figures were allowed to get on with their lives.  But everyone was made to understand, if not accept, that Germany had lit the flame that set Europe on fire, how Nationalism and bigotry struck the match, and how ordinary Germans allowed it to happen.  Teaching about the Holocaust became part of the required school curriculum and the display of Nazi symbols remains illegal in the reunified Germany.  Denazification was not perfectly carried out – but at least it was a sincere effort to address some wrongs – something which was not even attempted after 1865.  In the United States today, Confederate flags fly even in states which did not secede from the Union or allow slavery.  As someone descended from members of the Union Army and Navy, including one who died at Gettysburg, I remain highly troubled by this.  I have concluded that one of the great tragedies of our American history is that "deconfederatization" never took place in the Old South.

    

No justice, no peace.

Know justice, know peace.

Mozart, Loggins-Hull, and Prokofiev at Severance

The 2024-2025 Cleveland Orchestra season is nearing its end.  Music Director Franz Welser-Möst led the orchestra in a typical program which balanced an established older work with a brand-new piece, and an unfamiliar older work.

The concert began with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550.  Welser-Möst has led several Mozart symphonies over the past 23 years of his tenure here, but this is the first time I’ve heard him in K. 550, a work I know well.  Mozart is quietly revolutionary here: the piece opens not with the “sit up and pay attention” chord that was common with the time, but a quiet and very brief pulsing passage which leads directly to the main theme; in the finale, Mozart introduces a transitional passage which includes 11 of the 12-note chromatic scale, with the note of G (the home key of the work) left out – a technique which is prescient of Arnold Schoenberg.  Welser-Möst used a reduced complement of strings which made it easier for the winds to be heard.  The conductor’s tempi, phrasing, balance, and pacing were just right.  The only thing which detracted from my enjoyment was a small group of audience members who applauded after the first and second movements.  For years, I have considered Mozart’s last Symphony, No. 41 in C major, K. 551, as my favorite by that composer.  But Welser-Möst may have changed my mind and allegiance to K. 550. 

The next work was a new piece receiving its world premiere this weekend: Allison Loggins-Hull’s Grit. Grace. Glory.  This work is optimistic, broadly tonal, and filled with the spirit of, well, Cleveland.  The opening movement, titled Steel, pulsed with dynamic energy.  Shoreline Shadows, the second movement, stepped back a bit and had moments of reflection – I felt as if I was enjoying a tranquil day on the shores of Lake Erie.  The third movement, Quip, was self-deprecatingly playful in the way one often hears in a Haydn menuet or finale.  The finale, Ode, was suffused with the spirit of memories before segueing into a “Rock and Roll” section which concluded the piece.  It’s encouraging to hear music which leaves the audience enthused, as they were here, instead of baffled.

Allison Loggins-Hull acknowledges the ovation after the performance.

The last work on this weekend’s program was the revised version of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4, which, interestingly, was included on another program two years ago that also included a premiere of a work by Loggins-Hull.  Welser-Möst’s interpretation of the work appears to have changed a bit: the outer movements were broader last night than in 2023.  The central movements just seemed, well, uninteresting.  My conclusion leaving the concert was the exact opposite as two years ago – aside from the opening movement it’s one of the weakest works of Prokofiev I’ve ever encountered.  This may simply be a reflection of my status last night, as I was tired and recovering an exhausting week that included a recent vaccination.  However, the fact that the work has not crossed my mind over the past two years refutes that supposition.

We’re still deciding whether to attend next week’s concert presentation of Janáček’s opera Jenůfa.