Discover the work of student singers
The regular main-stage student opera productions at Boston University and the New England Conservatory bring opportunities to hear unusual repertoire and interesting young singers. People who enjoy discovering future stars have had early opportunities to hear such prominent singers as Denyce Graves, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Dominique Labelle, and Kelly Kaduce in such productions.
Both schools are leading off with works by Benjamin Britten. NEC presents "The Turn of the Screw" in the Cutler Majestic Theatre Dec. 10-12, directed by David Gately and conducted by John Greer. BU stages "The Rape of Lucretia" Feb. 24-27 in the BU Theatre (William Lumpkin conductor, Jim Petosa stage director).
Later, NEC presents Massenet's "Cendrillon" ("Cinderella"), staged by Marc Astafan and conducted by Greer, March 11-13 in the Cutler Majestic. At BU, stage director Sharon Daniels has been building a significant cycle of unusual Mozart operas. April 21-24 brings "La Finta Giardiniera" to the BU Theatre, and Craig Smith conducts.
Speaking of Lieberson, she is coming to town to sing in Berlioz's "Romeo et Juliette" with James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; she will give a public master class at New England Conservatory Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Brown Hall.
A strong premiere: News that the Fifth Symphony by Boston College composer Thomas Oboe Lee was his response to the quirky, surprising boxed collages by the American artist Joseph Cornell (1903-73) quickened interest in the premiere Sunday afternoon by conductor Max Hobart and the Civic Symphony Orchestra of Boston because Lee has often proved a quirky, surprising composer.
The five-movement work has its moments, but it also has longueurs. The best moments come in the first and fourth movements. The opening, subtitled "3708 Utopia Parkway, Flushing, NY" (the address where Cornell spent most of his life), is a cheerful subway piece depicting the artist's regular trips to Manhattan to scrounge raw materials for his art. It's Leroy Anderson meets Philip Glass, although Anderson would have known when to stop and get off. The fourth movement, a cancan, is delightfully off-kilter. Two of the other movements are a little fey and self-conscious. The apotheosis-finale, a setting of a hymn by Mary Baker Eddy in broad, Bruckner-Adagio style, seems a bit pretentious here.
Lee has far more of a sweet tooth than Cornell, whose work has an unsettling edge the composer has avoided in his skillful but docile music. Hobart and the Civic Symphony offered a strong, basic performance of the work.
The other main event of the program was Chopin's F-Minor Concerto, with pianist Michael Lewin. His direct approach was particularly effective in the big recitative section of the slow movement and in the rollicking humor of the conclusion. At other points the music seemed a bit muscle-bound, an effect hard to avoid on a modern piano, especially if you are trying, as Lewin evidently and laudably was, to butch up a concerto that is too often sentimentalized. The challenge to the orchestra is to keep interested; Hobart kept it together, but maybe also helped tie the pianist in a straitjacket.
