Music review: Camerata Orchestra
Italian-themed concert warms ears on a chilly day
April 1, 2008
by Peter Jacobi
Outside, the weather was all gloom, what with a dying winter holding on, struggling to keep the advancing spring at bay. Inside Carmichael Auditorium at Bloomington South, the atmosphere radiated warmth and sunshine as the Camerata, guest conductor John Morris Russell, and baritone Timothy Noble combined for a musical celebration called “Viva Italia!”
Now, that doesn’t mean all the music performed on Sunday afternoon was cheerful. There was Verdi, after all: the overture to one of his gloomiest operas, “La Forza del Destino”; and the nervous ballet music from “Otello,” used in the opera just as the tension of that tragic tale builds toward climax; and the elder Germont’s aria from “La Traviata,” the one in which he tries to comfort his son, Alfredo, after Violetta has left him because, unknown to Alfredo, she was asked to do so by his father.
There also was that foreboding Prologue from Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci,” in which the audience is warned that a drama from “real life” is about to unfold.
But there was Rossini, too, and Respighi, and Tchaikovsky in love with Italy. And the all of it was so romantic and so melodic and so lyrical and so easy on the ears, reminiscent of old-fashioned pops concerts many of us used to enjoy in the outdoors when the weather was bonny.
And, mind you, how well it was done. Russell, the former associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony, now music director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Canada, had the Camerata playing with precision and a sense for colors. As for Tim Noble, he, of course, took charge of stage and theater, making sure to remind listeners that here, still, is an artist who commands a voice of power and resonance and who imbues everything he sings with attitude and significance.
For that portentous introductory aria from “Pagliacci,” the Noble baritone turned sinister, even alarming. When he portrayed the well-meaning but misguided father in “Traviata,” he caused his voice to soften markedly, to melt. Two Italian songs, Tosti’s lovely “Ideale” and de Curtis’ “Torna a Surriento,” were performed with joyful abandon.
Conductor and orchestra excelled at atmosphere, too. The Verdi “Forza” Overture had drama aplenty; his “Otello” ballet music gained the needed sense of agitation. Rossini’s overture to “L’Italiana in Algeri” sparkled.
In the Respighi tone poem, “Fontana di Roma” (“Fountains of Rome”), the orchestra, expertly prompted by Russell, captured the moods the composer sought to reflect, moods suggested by four historic Roman fountains. The performance came just a week after Leonard Slatkin and the IU Philharmonic offered a memorable reading of Respighi’s sister tone poem, “The Pines of Rome.” The Camerata nobly held its own.
The program ended with Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italien,” a Russian-flavored fantasia inspired by the composer’s tour of Italy, filled with Italian folk songs and original, Italianlike tunes. Its performance matched the jubilance in the score.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
