“One big item remains on the bucket list of Cleveland Orchestra director Franz Welser-Möst, and soon he’ll be able to cross it off,” writes Zachary Lewis in Friday’s (4/1) Plain Dealer (Cleveland). “With the orchestra’s upcoming ‘Bartók On Stage,’ a new collaboration with Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, the conductor will get … to preside over a high-level dance production, to do justice to music he feels is underappreciated.… Performances of Bartók’s ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’ and ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ alone are far from rare, but a staging of both on the same night with major roles for dancers may be wholly unprecedented. The orchestra is … capitalizing on its relationship with Joffrey by staging both opera and ballet, giving two of Bartók’s darkest works the lavish treatment at Severance Hall in the form of productions directed by choreographer Yuri Possokhov, a former soloist at the Bolshoi, Royal Danish and San Francisco ballets.” Said Welser-Möst, “People should be prepared that both pieces are really shattering. They call for immediate intensity, which I hope the audience will feel. It’s going to be very beautiful and very poetic. But it’s not a nice night.” Performances are scheduled for this Thursday through Sunday.
Posted April 5, 2016
