Stravinsky at the NY Philharmonic - Sleeping, and Awakening....

Last night I attended an installment of the New York Philharmonic's on-going Stravinsky Festival, led by Valery Gergiev.  On the program were Orpheus, a ballet written for Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Society in 1946-7, and Oedipus Rex, an oratorio written for Diaghilev's Ballet Russe in 1926-27 (slightly revised in 1948).  The first was a snooze, the second overwhelming in its impact.

According to the program book, the only time the NYP had previously played Orpheus was during a subscription week in January 1990, led by Erich Leinsdorf, who had a propensity for programing novelties.  If a "major" ballet by Stravinsky was played only once in the NY Philharmonic's history, there must be a good reason.  This was disclosed last night, when I found it impossible to stay focused on this piece.  It began well enough, with some interesting orchestra textures, but as it proceeded I found my attention wandering because it seemed to be mainly texture without much great musical interest, apart from a few violin solos that sounded like the Violin Concerto (which I like) but without the same level of inspiration.  Perhaps one can call this a justly-neglected work, but somewhere out there are the ardent fans of Stravinsky's Orpheus and perhaps I'll hear from them for writing this.  I don't fault conductor and orchestra, who were giving their all, but the raw material they had to work with did not strike me as particularly memorable.

After intermission, it was another story indeed.  Actor Jeremy Irons provided a spoken prologue in English and then the orchestra and chorus launched into the exciting opening chorus of Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King), Stravinsky's dynamic setting of a Latin translation of Sophocles' great tragic play. 

They were really clicking on all cylinders last night for an overwhelming presentation of one of Stravinsky's most inspired works.  Anthony Dean Griffey was spectacular as the doomed king, Waltraud Meier quite moving as his mother/queen.  The other fine soloists were Mikhail Petrenko, singing the parts of Creon, brother to the king, and a messenger, Ilya Bannik, singing the part of the se'er Tiresias, and Alexander Timchenko, singing the part of the Shepherd who desposited the child Oedipus in the wilderness.  Irons' readings of the narrative lines were masterful, full of dramatic inflection but without overdoing the melodrama.

But the true stars of the evening were the men from the Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre, singing the choruses of the people of Thebes, the orchestra, and, of course, Valery Gergiev.  As I experienced last week when he conducted Les Noces, this conductor has an extaordinary empathy with the theatrical Stravinsky.  Give him voices and a story-line to work with and he will animate pieces that can seem dead in other hands.  It is the triumph of a great opera conductor coming to non-operatic music, and finding and disclosing its operatic core.  Bravo!