It was a rare oppurtunity that the Peabody Institute was offering a free ticket to each Hopkins affiliate for the season-closing performance of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. So I took it immediately and enjoyed every minute of it.
The orchestra was full of young, energetic budding musicians who were eager to make their marks. You could hear it right away in the first piece in the program, Otto Nicolai's Overture to "The Merry Wives of Windsor". It was like everyone in the first violins was playing like the concertmaster, with equal confidence, vigor and virtuosity. In fact, the concertmaster and two assistant concertmasters did lead in turn in three pieces of the program. Music director Hajime Teri Murai was terrific in conducting both the instrumental and the vocal music.
I wasn't so sure if I would like the program at first because I wasn't a big fan of opera. But the music as well as the wonderful performance convenced me. Richard Strauss's Suite from "Der Rosenkavalier" was a beautiful German opera about love, the eternal theme of human struggle while Selections from "Show Boat" by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II (arr. Bennett) was everything American. With the help of side-by-side translation of German lyrics, I was, for the first time, able to follow the singers down to a single little cute Deutsche consonant, which was very rewarding. Soprano Sarah Joanne Davis was fabulous as Marschallin in this opera. The selections from "Show Boat" were very pleasing as well and baritone Richard Williams was absolutely amazing as Joe in the aria "Ol' Man River".
It might have been because I was sitting in a great seat but this concert experience had been one of my best in months, beating many big names like National or Boston.
The orchestra was full of young, energetic budding musicians who were eager to make their marks. You could hear it right away in the first piece in the program, Otto Nicolai's Overture to "The Merry Wives of Windsor". It was like everyone in the first violins was playing like the concertmaster, with equal confidence, vigor and virtuosity. In fact, the concertmaster and two assistant concertmasters did lead in turn in three pieces of the program. Music director Hajime Teri Murai was terrific in conducting both the instrumental and the vocal music.
I wasn't so sure if I would like the program at first because I wasn't a big fan of opera. But the music as well as the wonderful performance convenced me. Richard Strauss's Suite from "Der Rosenkavalier" was a beautiful German opera about love, the eternal theme of human struggle while Selections from "Show Boat" by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II (arr. Bennett) was everything American. With the help of side-by-side translation of German lyrics, I was, for the first time, able to follow the singers down to a single little cute Deutsche consonant, which was very rewarding. Soprano Sarah Joanne Davis was fabulous as Marschallin in this opera. The selections from "Show Boat" were very pleasing as well and baritone Richard Williams was absolutely amazing as Joe in the aria "Ol' Man River".
It might have been because I was sitting in a great seat but this concert experience had been one of my best in months, beating many big names like National or Boston.
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