Mondavi season announced
By Jeff Hudson/Enterprise Staff
Davis Enterprise, CA
May 5 2005
The Mondavi Center will mark its third anniversary – almost to
the day, on Oct. 4 – with a season-opening gala concert featuring
mezzo-^Gsoprano Cecilia Bartoli and the Orchestra La Scintilla of
Zurich Opera.
The Grammy-winning Bartoli is in great demand as an opera star,
recitalist and recording artist. It’s the first time the Mondavi
Center has held an “opening gala” since the center was dedicated on
Oct. 3, 2002.
Opera is featured at the front of the brochure for the upcoming season,
announced Wednesday on the Jackson Hall stage. In addition to Bartoli’s
appearance, the Helikon Opera of Moscow will visit, performing Strauss’
“Die Fledermaus” and Verdi’s “Falstaff.”
Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” will be performed by the Carl Rosa
Opera of London. The production is a historic recreation of Gilbert’s
original at the Savoy Theatre in London, featuring sets and costumes
replicating those from 1885.
Two other widely acclaimed operatic performers also will give a
recital – veteran mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and bass-baritone
Samuel Ramey.
The upcoming season is also being billed as “The Year of the Violin,”
with performers ranging from up-and-comers to venerated elders,
including:
n Itzhak Perlman, who turns 60 this year, and can fairly claim to be
the world’s best-known violinist, with the National Symphony Orchestra
under conductor Leonard Slatkin, performing Samuel Barber’s Violin
Concerto. This will be Perlman’s fourth regional appearance sponsored
by UC Davis.
Also on this all-American program are Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances
from “West Side Story” and John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, a work
written in response to the AIDS epidemic.
n Joshua Bell, an American classical artist in his mid-30s – who has
been recording since he was 18 – in a solo recital.
n Renaud Capucon, a Frenchman in his late 20s, and the Bruckner
Orchestra Linz under conductor Dennis Russell Davies, playing the
Korngold Violin Concerto, a work from the 1940s that’s Late Romantic
in style, incorporating themes from movie scores the European-born
composer wrote in Hollywood. Also on the program is Bruckner’s Symphony
No. 8.
n Sergei Khachatrian, an Armenian phenom born in 1985, with the London
Philharmonic Orchestra under veteran conductor Kurt Masur, performing
Soviet/Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto. Also
on the program is Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
n American Gil Shaham, born in 1971, performing American composer
William Schuman’s Violin Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony
under Michael Tilson Thomas. Also on the program is German composer
Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish.”
The violinists this season aren’t all classical. Canadian fiddler
Natalie MacMaster is returning. Irish fiddler Sharon Shannon appears
with singer Mary Black and others. And the eight-member Leahy family
of Canada, which features several fiddlin’ siblings, appears at the
Mondavi for the first time.
Classical artists
The classical/orchestral roster also will feature flutist Maxim Rubtsov
with the Russian National Orchestra, under conductor Carlo Ponti Jr.,
performing Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 1. Also on the program are
Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherezade” and the Suite No. 1 by Shostakovich.
The Bruckner Orchestra Linz is the only visiting orchestra playing
two programs at the Mondavi Center next season. The second concert
will be part of the contemporary Edgewise series, and feature the
Symphonies No. 6 and 7 by American composer Philip Glass.
Other major classical artists are The Academy of St. Martin in the
Fields Chamber Ensemble, an octet directed by Kenneth Sillito, and
a solo recital by San Francisco-based pianist Garrick Ohlsson, who
tours as a recitalist and with major orchestras, and was featured
during the Mondavi Center’s first season.
In terms of jazz, performers in Jackson Hall include the McCoy Tyner
Trio, vocalist Dianne Reeves (with a Christmas program), the Mingus
Big Band, pianist Chick Corea, and veteran tenor sax star Sonny
Rollins and his band.
In the Studio Theater, vibraphonist Stefon Harris and Blackout,
pianist Bill Charlap’s trio, and pianist/singer Patricia Barber’s
trio give club-style performances.
Dancers galore
Several large-scale dance productions are coming for two-night stays,
including:
n The multidisciplinary “Blueprint of a Lady,” featuring classic jazz
tunes identified with singer Billie Holiday, performed by singer Nnenna
Freelon, with choreography by Ronald K. Brown and film by Robert Penn;
n Ballet Hispanico, with an “adult-theme” program titled “NightClub”;
n Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York-based group that has collaborated
with the Metropolitan Opera;
n Grupo Corpo, a Brazilian group that visited the Mondavi last
year; and
n The Inbal Pinto Dance Company, with a set of “circus-like vignettes”
titled “Gypsy.”
In addition to the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the contemporary Edgewise
series will feature “Ayre,” written by composer Osvaldo Golijov,
featuring Grammy-winning soprano Dawn Upshaw and the instrumental
ensemble eighth blackbird, summer guests at the Mondavi Center two
years ago.
There will also be a return visit by the 18-piece Absolute Ensemble,
a classically trained, contemporary-minded outfit led by conductor
Kristian Jarvi, with a program called “Arabian Nights.”
The season also features two theatrical evergreens known for swordplay
– Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers,” both
performed by The Acting Company.
Around the world
World music and dance offerings – always a major feature in the
Mondavi Center’s programming – include the Ballet Flamenco José
Porcel; Yamato, a taiko drumming group from Japan; Plena Libre, a
Puerto Rican group drawing on several styles; Chi, featuring members
of the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe; and Senegalese star Youssou N’Dour,
performing music from his much-admired recording “Egypt.”
Other world music and dance performers include the Children of Uganda,
featuring young people who’ve lost one or more family members to AIDS;
the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, returning after some years with new work
based on classical Indian dance; Boccatango, performing contemporary
tango dance, featuring Julio Bocca of the American Ballet Theatre;
and a return visit by the perennially popular Ladysmith Black Mambazo,
whose vocal music is South Africa’s major cultural export.
Rounding out the world music and dance offerings are Mexican-American
vocalist Lila Downs, who opened a Mondavi Center concert by Los Lobos
last year, and Ballet Folklorico “Quetzalli” de Veracruz.
Holiday season offerings include return engagements of the
mariachi-based Fiesta Navidad, a gospel concert by the Blind Boys of
Alabama and two performances of Handel’s “Messiah” by the American
Bach Soloists under conductor Jeffrey Thomas – all of which have been
popular events in previous Mondavi seasons.
Young artists featured on the Debut Series will be the Jupiter String
Quartet, pianist Wonny Song and five singers from the San Francisco
Opera’s Adler Fellows program. Tickets for Debut series concerts are
priced as low as $5 for students and children.
Mozart featured
Next year will mark the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth,
and the Mondavi Center will beginning a two-year cycle of Mozart
concerts featuring the Alexander String Quartet, lecturer Robert
Greenberg, and pianist Lara Downes – all of whom participated in
the Mondavi’s just-concluded three-year cycle of chamber works by
Dmitri Shostakovich.
Family programs include two shows connected with the Kennedy Center:
“Color Me Dark,” a play about two African-American sisters moving
from Tennessee to Chicago in the 1920s, and “Alexander, Who’s Not
Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move,” based on a popular Judith Viorst
children’s book.
There will also be a holiday season production based on the children’s
classic “The Velveteen Rabbit,” and a show called “Biglittlethings”
featuring the Imago Theatre, whose performers wear elaborate costumes
and masks.
Last but not least, the Mondavi Center is offering “new American
theater,” including “The End of Cinematics,” a mixture of hip-hop,
video, live performers and what Mondavi program director Brian McCurdy
called “a very cool set”; a return engagement of “The Ten PM Dream,”
a dance/theater piece by Della Davidson premiered here in 2002;
“Horizon” by Mondavi regular Rinde Eckert, based on the life of
American theologian Reinhold Neibuhr; “Death and the Ploughman,”
adapted by groundbreaking New York director Anne Bogart from a 15th
century German play; and “Cul-de-Sac” by the partnership da da kamera,
described as “a cynical look at life in the suburbs.”
All told, the 2005-06 series will feature 122 performances by 71
different artists and speakers.
–Boundary_(ID_GHtEGXoyY760qftSDSJNFw)–