Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Norwalk Symphony closes season with collaboration

By Jeffrey Johnson
Special Correspondent

Published May 8 2005

It was an evening of collaborations that closed the Norwalk Symphony's 2004-05 season April 30. The program, called The Sound of Shakespeare, consisted of music inspired by specific plays interspersed with vignettes from these plays.

The evening opened with the overture to "The Merry Wives of Windsor" written by Otto Nicolai. The Norwalk symphony set the tone for the first half with a warm reading of this well-known overture. Quickly changing gestures, in which strongly contrasting colors and musical styles are concatenated, were carefully balanced and made a strong impression. Diane Wittry conducted the entire evening without a baton, and in this overture and the Sibelius that followed I think that the two open hands contributed to soft and rich string sonority, particularly from the second violin and viola sections, which were outstanding throughout the first half.

Spencer Aste, Kathy McCafferty and Paul Hecht from Shakespeare on the Sound joined the orchestra for selections from "The Tempest," Op.109 by Sibelius. This mysterious and wonderful score is the last major work written by Sibelius prior to what has become know as the "Silence of Jarvenpaa," the 32 years at the close of his life in which he published no music. The actors wove brief but well chosen selections from the Shakespeare between and within gestures from the orchestra. Here and in the Mendelssohn "Midsummer Night's Dream" that closed the program, the presence of the actors created an effective connection to the Shakespeare that inspired these works, which is easily lost in concert performances of such distractingly gorgeous music.

The musical interpretation of the Sibelius was the high-point of the evening. Confident string playing absolutely took over the place. From the full ringing sonorities of Prospero's chorale-like music to the downright sexy figuration in Miranda's song, to the impressionistic whole-tone writing for strings and harp, it was a strong and colorful performance. Three cheers!

After intermission we heard the complete incidental music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Mendelssohn. Soprano Jennifer Check, and mezzo-soprano Alexandra Montano joined the orchestra along with the female section from The Mendelssohn Choir of Connecticut. The return of our actors from Shakespeare on the Sound made this a very strong collaborative project indeed.

The difficult figuration in the overture and scherzo wreaked havoc early on in the performance, but the wonderful duet by Check and Montano and the graceful articulation of the choral song by the Mendelssohn choir seemed to jar everyone back onto track through to the conclusion. The fiendishly long horn solo in the Nocturne was delivered very solidly by Maria Sommer.

The conception of this program was very creative. It shows how collaboration can lead to successful alternative programming that is not Pops oriented. The extra work needed to plan, coordinate, and pull off an enterprise like this is above and beyond the call of duty. It was a fitting conclusion to a fine season from the Norwalk Symphony.