Tuesday, May 24, 2005

DC Youth Orchestra And Junior Philharmonic

The DC Youth Orchestra and Junior Philharmonic gave a sterling concert Saturday at the University of the District of Columbia Auditorium. Together they represent more than 70 middle and high schools, both public and private, not only in Washington itself but spanning virtually the entire metropolitan area. DCYO director Lyn McLain, who founded the program nearly a half-century ago, remarked, "I have had the pleasure of seeing some of these students grow up and develop in this program from the age of 5, 6 and 7 years."

As the Junior Philharmonic (middle schoolers) quietly assembled on the stage for the opening piece, one listener was heard to exclaim, "My, the players are so little." Nevertheless, they gave a confident and poignant account of Gluck's Overture to "Iphigenia in Aulis," bows in every orchestral section in sync, all musicians immediately responsive to McLain's minutest gesture and, surprisingly for those so young, their intonation was relatively accurate.

The concert also featured two winners of the organization's annual Concerto Competition: flutist Krisztina Der and violinist Nick Montopoli, both accompanied by the Youth Orchestra (high schoolers). Der played Mozart's Rondo in D, K. 184, giving it a clean, full-bodied tone and fleet fingers for those ornate variations Mozart loved to indulge in. Balance with the orchestra, which gave her ample and skillful support, was fine, though marred briefly by Der's memory lapses. Montopoli approached the Allegro from Mendelssohn's Concerto in E Minor with no-fail agility, a superb sense of pitch and a sound at once sweet and gleaming. Again the orchestra carried its role with conviction, entrances sure and ensemble tight.

The program closed with the DCYO in Gershwin's "Cuban Overture," clearly too difficult for these young musicians.

-- Cecelia Porter

The New Dominion Chorale is hardly an elitist organization; it does not hold auditions but accepts anyone who wishes to sing. But there was an air of elitism about its "Opera Fest" program Sunday in the Schlesinger Auditorium of Northern Virginia Community College. The program's four soloists were regional finalists of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, young singers on a fast track to stardom. The program was made up largely of operatic top-40 material, solo and choral, and this crowd-pleasing mix of singers and program attracted a near-capacity audience.

The group opened with three choruses from Mozart's "Idomeneo" and also sang choruses from "Cavalleria Rusticana," "Prince Igor" (the Polovetsian Dances), "La Traviata," "Treemonisha" and "Die Fledermaus." Its most moving selection was "Va, pensiero," from Verdi's "Nabucco." Conductor Thomas Beveridge introduced this selection by explaining how this music helped inspire the Risorgimento movement for Italy's unification and describing the thousands of mourners who spontaneously sang it at Verdi's funeral procession.

The chorus's recruitment policies have resulted in an unbalanced ratio, with female singers outnumbering males by nearly 2 to 1, but the tone was smoothly balanced and blended. The soloists were all excellent, notably tenor Jose Sacin, who found the pathos in Lensky's aria from "Eugene Onegin" and the exuberance in the Brindisi from "La Traviata." In this he was joined by soprano Amanda Squitieri, who also brought down the house with the "Laughing Song" from "Die Fledermaus."

From the same opera, mezzo-soprano Leslie Mutchler gave a spectacular performance of Orlovsky's "Chacun a son gout" aria. She matched wits deftly with baritone Nemeh Azzam in "Dunque io son" from "The Barber of Seville." Earlier, he had brought the right swagger to the "Toreador Song" from "Carmen."

-- Joseph McLellan

Turn around and look closer, admonishes choreographer Meisha Bosma in "Blind Spot." In this 45-minute work, the dancers in the cast do both to confront forces that pull at them from overlooked places.

The latest incarnation of "Blind Spot," performed Sunday at Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, showed that Bosma prizes reexamining her own work (a laudable quality in a young choreographer), having retooled the piece's ending to better incorporate filmed components.

Bosma revisited several themes in the course of the work. Each dancer looked inward, searching to find himself or herself in the movement, palming legs and torsos to reestablish a physical identity. Each woman danced amid the tugging grasps of the others, often pairing in almost violent, manipulative duets that culminated in a sequence in which five dancers surrounded the sixth, her shoulders rising as they spat demeaning remarks at her.

Bosma's movement paired this aggression with a lush femininity, undergirded with consistent drive, particularly those sections danced to a recording of Philip Glass's pulsing synthesizer. Yet she also used stillness effectively, as in a segment in which a film of Bosma struggling with a male dancer was played as Bosma stood onstage watching, fingers barely twitching. In another duet, Bosma explored how two people battle over space and for power, the dancers sculpting and shoving each other to spoken poetry by Sylvia Plath.

BosmaDance features strong, technical dancers; Eileen Schwartz and Bosma stood out for remaining compact and tight without sacrificing elongation. The program also included Schwartz in the solo "I Love, I Don't" and Katrina Toews in a voyeuristic adventure, dancing before a warped mirror image of herself.

-- Clare Croft