It was a fast-paced and busy first week of the Astoria Music Festival. Saturday’s concert fulfilled one of my long time dreams to play at least part of Wagner’s epic Ring cycle of operas. This came in the opening night performance of Act I of Die Walküre, with a trio of superb singers from the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, and San Francisco Opera companies. Truly in this music the orchestra is an additional character, almost like the chorus of Greek tragedy, commenting upon the proceedings and offering psychological underpinnings to the action on stage. It was also a pleasure to play one of Wagner’s rare small scale pieces, his Siegfried Idyll, written for his wife Cosima’s birthday and performed in their home by 13 musicians on Christmas morning 1870.
On Sunday afternoon, Sarah Kwak, Oregon Symphony concertmaster, made her solo debut with the festival orchestra – performing Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins with Martin Chalifour, concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Chalifour also played the Glazunov Violin Concerto on the same concert. The program began with Glinka’s ever popular overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla, and ended with Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1919).
The second week of the festival ramps up the activity quite a bit. We’re presenting highlights from Verdi’s great opera Othello; a chamber concert featuring music for strings, piano, and woodwinds; and an orchestra concert built around Dvorak’s New World Symphony, and featuring cellist Sergey Antonov performing Lalo’s Cello Concerto. I would highly recommend making the trek out to see the festival – great seats are available, ticket prices are reasonable, and the artistic quality is very high. Hope to see you there!
One reply on “astoria music festival – week one report”
see review here – http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=12e4f805ea6a68e23750a0aa7&id=04822d161d&e=c4baa381b0