The sets from Austin Lyric Opera deliver just enough atmosphere for the production. Director David Gately doesn't seem to know what to do with crowd scenes, but he has added some subtle individual touches that pay off - a recurring emphasis on Carmen's card-reading obsession, for example, and a particularly novel way of having her raise her skirt even when her hands are tied behind her back.
"Carmen" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, 2 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday with Denyce Graves; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday with Laura Brioli; at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. N.W., Washington. For ticket availability, call 202-295-2400 or go to dc-opera.org.
Pro Musica Hebraica
In between writing provocative columns from a firmly conservative point of view and appearing as a talking head on political chat shows, Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Krauthammer devotes attention to a worthy cultural project - Pro Musica Hebraica, which he founded last year with his wife, artist Robyn Krauthammer. The organization seeks to bring attention to classical music by Jewish composers, especially those whose work have been neglected.
The 2008-2009 season of Pro Musica Hebraica opens next week with a concert by ARC, the ensemble-in-residence of Canada's Royal Conservatory of Music. The program includes the Clarinet Sonata and Piano Quintet written in the mid-1940s by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a significant figure in 20th-century Russian music. A piece by Polish composer Szymon Laks, composed two years after his liberation from Auschwitz, will also be played, along with Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes.
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, 2700 F St. N.W., Washington. Tickets are $50. Call 202-416-8500, or go to kennedy-center.org.
Handel Choir shines
In four years, Melinda O'Neal has steadily honed the formerly uneven Handel Choir of Baltimore into a classy ensemble, as reconfirmed last Saturday in a program of works by Handel and Bach performed at First English Lutheran Church.
A telling sign early on of how much O'Neal's fine-tuning has done for the group came in the firm, colorful way individual voices started off the contrapuntal flurry of the Alleluia in Handel's Coronation Anthem, "The King shall rejoice." That kind of refinement was unimaginable in the pre-O'Neal days that I experienced.
Two Bach cantatas received dynamic performances that likewise found the chorus maintaining solid intonation, clarity of articulation and sensitivity to the shape of phrases. There were admirable contributions as well from the guest soloists: countertenor Jay White (his fast vibrato was a bit distracting, his styling ever-elegant), tenor Robert Petillo and bass Phillip Collister.
One of O'Neal's most significant decisions as artistic director was the formation of a period orchestra used for baroque repertoire. Its contributions here were not entirely free of pitch discrepancies, but were always colorful and expressive. The woodwind soloists, in particular, made eloquent contributions.
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