California’s Pacific Symphony is in the midst of “Shakespeare Reimagined,” a festival held in partnership with Chapman University through April 19 that encompasses Shakespeare-themed classical concerts, discussions, film, dance, theater, master classes, and a symposium on interpreting Shakespeare. On March 13, the Chapman Orchestra and Women’s Choir will perform Mendelssohn’s complete incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while theater students perform a semistaged version of the play. Music Director Carl St.Clair will lead the Pacific Symphony in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet from April 16 to 18, with actors and dancers from the university, reinstating Prokofiev’s interpolated happy ending, banned by Joseph Stalin in favor of Shakespeare’s tragic finale. The Romeo and Juliet programs will also include Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins, with principal violinists of the Pacific Symphony, and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, with Principal Cellist Timothy Landauer. Also part of the festival will be performances of Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and a screening of the documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars, about an organization that offers theatrical encounters to incarcerated and post-incarcerated adults and juveniles.
Posted March 10, 2015
