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Undaunted by rain, Idina Menzel and Cleveland Orchestra work their magic at Blossom (July 26)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio — Misfortune almost strikes during Act 1 of the musical “Wicked” when Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, gets caught mid-song in a rain shower. Funnily enough, she doesn’t melt. For an audience that knows “The Wizard of Oz,” it’s an early hint that the show is destined for a happier-than-expected ending.

You could say it was an auspicious sign, then, that the skies opened up right before Idina Menzel took the stage at Blossom Music Center on Sunday, July 26, even as the rain persisted throughout her first several numbers.

A distinctive voice in theater and film for three decades now, Menzel has a characteristic way of transforming any setback into a kind of encouragement — a power ranging well beyond her Tony Award-winning turn as Broadway’s original Elphaba.

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From Bogotá to Kent Blossom: Quintet of the Americas (July 1)

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by Peter Feher

Colombia may have underperformed in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but the nation’s classical composers put on a remarkably strong showing at this year’s Kent Blossom Music Festival. Their works for woodwind quintet got prime playing time in Ludwig Recital Hall on Wednesday, July 1.

“Are you surprised?” A little bit of audience astonishment — all in good sport — was exactly what the Quintet of the Americas hoped to elicit with its Colombian-centric chamber program for Kent Blossom’s Faculty Concert Series.

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Cleveland Orchestra’s July 18 concert rescued from the elements (July 18)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Johannes Brahms was a composer well attuned to the sounds of nature. They reverberate throughout his symphonies, from magnificent horn calls evoking the Alps to sunny, pastoral stretches of string writing.

Still, like most classical musicians, he probably wouldn’t have cited the great outdoors as his preferred concert environment.

So it was unexpectedly lucky for all involved that, amid air-quality alerts and thunderstorms, the Cleveland Orchestra made a rare change of venue, moving Saturday’s Blossom Music Festival performance indoors to Severance.

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Something familiar, something peculiar: Ohio Light Opera’s The Boys from Syracuse (June 25)

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by Peter Feher

A traveler from ancient Greece could easily get mixed up looking at a map of modern Ohio and set out for Athens, Macedonia, or East Sparta, only to be in for a shock upon arrival. Still, it would take a misunderstanding of exceedingly farcical proportions to embark for the city of Ephesus yet somehow end up at the College of Wooster.

But this is just the sort of topsy-turvy trajectory that has landed The Boys From Syracuse in the Ohio Light Opera’s current season. (To be clear: Our title characters hail from the Mediterranean, not Upstate New York.)

With a keen appreciation for comic absurdity, the company in residence each summer at Freedlander Theatre is mounting its first-ever staging of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s bygone 1938 Broadway hit. OLO’s production, which runs in repertory through July 30, is at once foreign and familiar — amusingly so.
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Akron Symphony brings out a crowd for Carmina Burana (May 9)

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by Peter Feher

For a moment during the Akron Symphony’s season-finale performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, conductor Christopher Wilkins seemed to consider inviting the audience to sing along.

It would have been very much in keeping with the spirit shared throughout E.J. Thomas Hall on Saturday evening, May 9. The orchestra winningly combined local pride and popular classics to conclude the concert year, and as if on cue, the community turned out in enthusiastic response.

With Orff as the main offering, the Akron Symphony attracted its biggest audience for a classical program in a decade, according to the organization’s own tally.

Called on as choristers, any crowd could probably manage a passable imitation of the famous opening “O Fortuna” — those fateful clashing chords that set the wheel of Carmina Burana spinning. But someone listening attentively to the piece might be tempted to join in whenever a refrain starts up.

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Richard Goode returns to Schubert for Oberlin Artist Recital Series (Apr. 29)

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by Peter Feher

Life is too short to take the opening repeat in Franz Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat, D. 960. The first movement — marked Molto moderato, or “very moderately” — already clocks in at around 15 minutes, even without hearing the entire exposition twice.

Of course, purists will play up those few transitional bars that Schubert crafted to lead back to the beginning, which would be cut in a straight-through performance. The composer’s overall conception is supposedly lost if the strict symmetry of sonata form isn’t upheld.

Such arguments are no match for pianist Richard Goode, who gave an authoritative account of the work — sans repeat — for the final concert of this season’s Oberlin Artist Recital Series. Goode offered an interpretation borne of age and experience, qualities that were in evidence throughout his solo program on Wednesday evening, April 29, in Finney Chapel.

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Pianist Marc-André Hamelin traces ‘thoughtful evolution’ of piano at Severance (May 5)

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by Peter Feher

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Franz Joseph Haydn was one of the first composers to recognize the untapped potential in a promising new keyboard instrument called the fortepiano, which, as the name suggested, could play both loud and soft.

By the time that Sergei Rachmaninoff was writing his most virtuosic piano works some 150 years later, he had exploited the full sweep of the instrument, from crashing bass chords to glassy high notes of exquisite fragility.

The technical breakthroughs made at the keyboard over this period can all too easily be taken for granted in the 21st century, with many of today’s leading soloists achieving correctness at the cost of artistic expression.

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CIM Opera Theater follows the fairy tale of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (Mar. 27)

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by Peter Feher

Hansel and Gretel had something better than breadcrumbs to accompany their journey through the forest of Ilsenstein, whose enchanted scenery recently sprang to life on the Kulas Hall stage at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Whether avoiding chores, wandering from home, or outsmarting the Gingerbread Witch, the siblings were guided in their moments of trouble by the enduring melodies and leitmotifs of composer Engelbert Humperdinck.

Nothing too bad could befall these characters, buoyed by folk songs one minute and heavenly orchestral tunes the next. Indeed, there were ample delights — and only the slightest bit of danger — to encounter in CIM Opera Theater’s production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, presented with two student casts in two performances, March 27 and 29.

Darkness doesn’t play much of a role in the German libretto by Adelheid Wette, who in 1890 enlisted her brother Humperdinck to collaborate on a kid-friendly adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Gone are the trail of breadcrumbs and the selfish stepmother who starves her family. The children simply get lost in the woods after eating too many strawberries.

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Conductor Daniele Rustioni, organist Paul Jacobs bask in Mediterranean spirit with The Cleveland Orchestra (Apr. 2)

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by Peter Feher

CLEVELAND, Ohio — When the sun rises on the sea at the beginning of Claude Debussy’s La Mer, there’s no coastline or human civilization in sight. Dark, rumbling waves in the timpani and low strings have brightened to reveal the full orchestra in sublime, surging phrases. We could be anywhere on the wide-open ocean.

But listeners won’t be left adrift in Debussy’s score this weekend at Severance Music Center. The Cleveland Orchestra is embarking on a luxuriously charted course with Italian guest conductor Daniele Rustioni. Although mostly focused on French repertoire, the program basks in a broader Mediterranean spirit.

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Apollo’s Fire and Alan Choo find riches in “Palace of Versailles” (Mar. 6)

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by Peter Feher

In 1715, the French composer Jean-Féry Rebel had the shrewd idea of combining the most popular Baroque dances of his day into a single crowd-pleasing piece. Les Caractères de la Danse was a hit with Parisian audiences, thanks in large part to the thrill that accompanies recognition.

Modern listeners can surely relate, even if they might struggle to tell a minuet from a musette or a gigue from a gavotte. Take Rebel’s concept, but swap in the music and moves of “Y.M.C.A.” or “Kung Fu Fighting,” and you have “Evolution of Dance,” one of the first viral videos in internet history.

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