‘Scheherezade & The Rite of Spring’ @ Fort Worth Symphony
Photos by Karen Almond
—Wayne Lee Gay
Besides being a landmark in the history of classical music, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring continues—well over a century after its riotous 1913 premiere in Paris—to create a visceral thrill, at once shocking and breathtakingly beautiful. That thrill returned to the stage of Bass Performance Hall last weekend with the addition of live modern dance, blended with the music of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under principal conductor Robert Spano.
Early staged productions of The Rite of Spring featured a full ballet company, and a plot line describing vernal rituals in an imagined "Pagan Russia” that lead to human sacrifice. Through the years, Stravinsky’s music has come to stand on its own in the concert hall, a tribute to its strength and inventiveness. As in a good movie, the surprises in The Rite of Spring can still amaze, even when the audience member knows what's coming.
Nonetheless, the addition of live dance to FWSO’s weekend performances added a visual element that definitely enhanced the experience. In this version, five female dancers from the Atlanta-based dance collective glo moved across the stage in flowing nature-toned garments by Margaret Ann Phillips; and the choreography by founder lauri stallings suggested primitive ritual—or maybe not, depending on the viewer's personal response.
The dancers writhed, leaped, came together and parted in a perpetual whirlwind of motion, providing a perfect visual and physical embodiment of Stravinsky's brilliant score—with the neatly conceived lighting by Alex Mason creating a depth of shadows and light in the hall. And behind this cyclone of bodies, the Fort Worth Symphony and conductor Spano provided an appropriately powerful aural backdrop, beginning with the famously haunting opening theme, performed by bassoonist Joshua Elmore.
Music director Spano's tenure with the Fort Worth Symphony has been marked by the presence of intriguing live visualizations of dramatic musical works of Stravinsky and Wagner: past events have included a choreographed presentation of Stravinsky's Petrouchka, and a semi-staged version of Act I of Wagner's Die Walküre. This production of The Rite of Spring proved the ongoing worthiness and value of events of this nature as part of the orchestra's season.
Rimsky-Korsakov's ever-popular Scheherazade opened the concert, creating, together with the Stravinsky work, a dazzling all-Russian program. The contrast between the high romanticism of Scheherazade and the aggressive early modernism of The Rite of Spring is self-evident; not so evident but equally significant is the relationship of the two works. Rimsky-Korsakov, who did not live to see or hear The Rite of Spring, was one of Stravinsky's teachers and early advocates, most famously instructing him in the subtle and not-so-subtle points of orchestration. The two works together contain just about everything anyone needs to know concerning the art of orchestration.
Spano and the orchestra deftly handled the richly expansive score, which depicts episodes from The Arabian Nights; concertmaster Michael Shih delivered the famous violin obbligato with polish and depth.
WHEN: January 31, February 1-2, 2025
WHERE: Ball Performance Hall, Fort Worth
WEB: fwsymphony.org
