Only in DC! Bach and Frederick the Great

Adolph von Menzel, 1815-1905, Frederick the Great Playing the Flute at Sanssouci, 1852 with Carl Philip Emanuel Bach on  harpsichord, Carl Graun (standing, between two ladies on the left), Johann Quantz (far right) and Franz Benda (second from right), all portrayed in Theatre Royal Bath's The Source at Shakespeare Theatre Company/Wikipedia, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.

To see British theatre on stage in Washington, one may go immediately to the Shakespeare Theatre Company's website and purchase tickets for the outstanding production by Theatre Royal Bath which has crossed the pond, bringing with it the troupe and a royal star who deliver one of the great performances of the season in Washington, D.C., its only U.S. venue. 

Sir Trevor Nunn (you do remember his Cats and Les Misérables?) directs.

The star is global winner Brian Cox and the show, The Score  by Oliver Cotton, based on a true encounter between Johann Sebastian Bach (Cox) and Frederick II, King of Prussia (Stephen Hagan) in 1747 when the two met in  Potsdam.

Real-life husband and wife, Brian Cox and Nicole Ansari-Cox are Anna Bach and Johann Sebastian Bach in Theatre Royal Bath's The Source at Shakespeare Theatre Company/By Theresa Castracane

Certainly, set designer Robert Jones and lighting designer Johanna Town must be students of Vermeer and his window works since they duplicate the painter’s haunting shadows and lighting in the opening scene with Bach and his wife, Anna (Cox's real-life wife, Nicole Ansari-Cox) seated inside their home in Leipzig, complaining about the outside clamor they hear emanating from the king's soldiers whose commotions upset residents. (Sophie Cotton is sound designer.) 

Bach is like a fuse waiting to be lit.  He’s unhappy, gruff and mad at the world.  His daughter (never seen) is ill, yet he must leave her and go visit the king who has summoned him to Potsdam. 

Anna pushes her husband out the door.

Like many artists who'd rather be doing most anything else, Bach resists visiting “your highness,” but, alas! The king wants to meet the musical genius.

In conversation, it's not long before Bach (1685 –1750) , the moralist and strict Lutheran, challenges the atheist king (1712-1786) to atone for his soldiers' rape of a blind 14-year-old girl in Leipzig, and the king responds, so what? "These things happen."

Bach is the good; the king, the bad.  Bach, morality; the king, unscrupulous, but, maybe, towards the end, scrupulsome? 

His father, Frederick William I, the "soldier king," had brought his son up "to be a man," treating him brutally, shunning his son’s interests in the arts and prohibiting Frederick II's pursuit of culture, even beheading II's rumored homosexual lover in front of his son.

Nevertheless, Frederick II became a great musician, a composer and a flutist in his own right.

Hagan's performance was absolutely captivating as king, to see him move around the stage like a stag, the very best of any king I’ve seen, a stunning portrayal of Frederick II, and coming close to riding roughshed over the star.

He is strong, he is arrogant, he is confident as he flings himself upon a chair and extends both arms, his legs, splayed. And when he stands, his arclike posture  commands all the personalities around him. But he is the king.

Jamie Wilkes is Bach's subservient son, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, a convincing rendering of an offspring who competes with other court composers  (the king’s sycophants, Christopher Staines, Matthew Romain, Toby Webster) utilizing the history of Bach I and the king, to participate in an outrageous bet about his father’s talents.

From left, King Frederick II of Prussia  (Stephen Hagan) with court composers (Christopher Staines, Toby Webster, and Matthew Romain) in Theatre Royal Bath's The Source at Shakespeare Theatre Company/By Theresa Castracane

From left, Voltaire (Peter De Jersey) and Johann Sebastian Bach (Brian Cox) backed by court composers (Christopher Staines, Toby Webster, and Matthew Romain) in Theatre Royal Bath's The Source at Shakespeare Theatre Company/By Theresa Castracane

Voltaire (Peter De Jersey) who lived for a while with Frederick II, declaring him to be "a philosopher-king," and exchanging many letters with him,  pops up every now and then in a lusty, comedic presentation to add doses of humor and lighten the score. (The play has lots more humor than anticipated.) 

Jones's exceptional sets and costumes match the luxury of von Menzel's painting.

The similarities to today’s American society and leadership leap to mind several times during the play, watching opposites contrast between the main characters, good and evil, and the conflicts between the people and a ruler who cares little about them and their wellbeing.

Other cast members are Juliet Garricks, Will Kerr, Jordan Kilshaw, Claire Morrissey, Max Pink, and Geoffrey Towers.

I can’t recall ever listing a casting director but kudos to Ginny Schiller! 

Other artistic team members are Cordelia Monsey, associate director; Theatre Royal Bath Productions, Len Blavatnik, Danny Cohen, producers; Laura Smith, Felix Dunning and Lorna Earl, stage managers.

 

What: The Source

 

When:  Now through Oct. 25 (extended), 7:30 p.m., Tuesday – Sunday; 2 p.m. every Saturday and some Thursdays and Sundays

 

Where:  Shakespeare Theatre Company, Harman Hall, 610 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20004

 

How much:  Tickets start at $39

Duration:  About 2.5 hours with one intermission

 

For more information:  Ph. 202.547.1122,  7 days a week, 12–6pm

Dumbarton Concerts presents another world premiere

 

The Historic Dumbarton Church in Georgetown/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Last Saturday morning while I bustled with cleaning chores getting ready for a weekend visitor, I looked at the photograph of my mother posted on the refrigerator door and sighed:  "I wish I could talk to you."

She's been long in the grave (almost 18 years) and I wondered if this same thought occurs to me every day.

That night at the Dumbarton Concerts the Tiffany Consort sang Angelo Cicolani's poem, "My Mother's Shadow (after Bach)":

My daily world goes on and on,
Yet special moments bring her close,
When joy or trouble make me wish
That we could talk.

It was the world premiere of the piece Mr. Cicolani commissioned Nicholas White, Tiffany's founder and director, to write, the third White composition directed by Mr. Cicolani. 

The "Mother" selection came at the end of the evening's concert of an otherwise solemn presentation of mostly a cappella medieval and Renaissance music, most dedicated to the upcoming Holy Week.  If anyone forgot it was Lent, the first part of the program was a stark reminder.   

(For the concert, the darkened and historic (1850) Dumbarton United Methodist Church always makes a beautiful setting with window sills decked with lighted candles.)

Nicholas White

The program led with another White compositions,  "Kyrie (after Albinoni)":  "A Lament for those who left this life too young," a tribute to Cicolani's  college roommate which included "In the midst of life we are in death....deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death." 

Eloquently accompanying the vocalists on "Kyrie" was cellist Benjamin Wensel. (Saturday's consort was composed of Steven Combs, sopranos Emily Noel and Laura Choi Stuart, tenor Matthew Hill, countertenor Roger Isaacs, and Mr. White. Was a singer or two missing?)

Music for Maundy Thursday included  the somber "Lamentations of Jeremiah" (Part One) by Thomas Tallis (1505-1652) with these words:

[The city] weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks, among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her.

In case those words were too uplifting, ending the first half of the program was "Miserere mei" by Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), originally intended for Renaissance monastic matins (after midnight) at the Sistine Chapel for Holy Week and included:

...cleanse me from my sin.  For I acknowledge my faults;  and my sin is ever before me....Turn Thy face from my sins:  and put out all my misdeeds.  Make me a clean heart, O God: and renew a right spirit within me.

After intermission came the hymn, "Jesu, meine Freude" BWV 227 by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), a motet which may have been written for a funeral.  I counted seven movements over its 20 minutes (and understand I missed four), but the appreciative audience seemed to like it best of all. 

Wensel followed with a much welcomed detour from verbal beatings with Bach's short solo "Sarabande" (Suite IV in E flat BWM 1010).

The best was saved for last.  Cicolani described his motivation for the commissioning of "My Mother's Shadow" in the program: " ... to express a wistful lament for the loss of our mothers....we often wish to summon her shadow to seek her thoughts, or to share something special in our lives....This commission is dedicated to all those mothers who have left too soon, and I hope will speak to the people they leave behind."

In the program notes Composer White wrote he could not escape the knowledge that the day of the concert was the 330th anniversary of Bach's birthday (O.S. March 21, 1685) which laid the foundation for the music.

More from the poem:

She left so long ago,
Mourning's done, our lives apart,
Waiting near my wistful heart,
To share our thoughts.

Thoughts of mother etched in my soul,
Yet sadness comes not anymore.
I miss her presence every day,
Her shadow lives by me evermore.

Based on the audience's warm response to each piece and the standing ovation at the finish, the Georgetown crowd, with a few music critics, thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

A happy surprise at Dumbarton Concerts is the "Concert Cafe" (in the wine cellar) with spirits and desserts to savor before the concert and during intermission, highlighted last week by an art show of color photographs of the region, some so splendidly reproduced they looked like oils on canvas. The artist, Rob Rudick, was on hand to talk and answer questions.

 With the lamentations behind us, it was time to walk the Georgetown streets and find joy among the people who, at that time of night, were celebratory and it is presumed, unmindful of self bashing.   

"Sizzle" is the name of the last concert at Dumbarton this season,
which suggests an entirely different kind of music, more in tune with spring's colorful array to contrast with the dark and sad, long-lasting winter.

Who:  Salome Chamber Orchestra

What:  "Sizzle" at Dumbarton Concerts


When:  8 p.m., Saturday, April 11, 2015

Where:  Historic Dumbarton Church, 3133 Dumbarton Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20007

Admission:  $35 and $30, seniors

Free limited parking:  At Hyde Elementary School, 3219 O Street, NW a half block off Wisconsin Avenue where an attendant will direct you on the short walk to the concert hall.

For more information:  202-965-2000

patricialesli@gmail.com