Date/Time
Apr 3, 2012 - 7:30 PM
Location
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Categories
Grammy Award–winning eighth blackbird promises–and delivers–provocative and mind-changing performances. Combining bracing virtuosity with an alluring sense of irreverence, the sextet attracts fans of all ages to its performances and recordings.
The evening features a staged cabaret-opera version of Schoenberg’s masterpiece “Pierrot lunaire,” in which the sad, naïve, clown-like character from Commedia dell’Arte takes a darkly comic journey through a strange world. Directed by choreographer Mark DeChiazza, it features soprano Lucy Shelton, dancer Elyssa Dole, and percussionist Matthew Duvall in the title role. “Delivered with dreamy rapture” (Chicago Sun-Times), the musicians perform the challenging work entirely from memory, so the players can take important roles in the drama.
Also on the program are pieces that have disparate but interesting links to Schoenberg: cabaret standards by Kurt Weill (one of his contemporaries) and Alban Berg’s lyrical arrangement of the Adagio from his Chamber Concerto (this movement is a musical depiction of Schoenberg’s love for his wife).
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