The Beauty of the Season Highlighted in FSBT's Nutcracker

Photo courtesy of FSBT

By Christine Facciolo

Larger-than-life scenery, sparkling costumes, dazzling dancing and a lush score by one of music’s greatest melodists.

Ballet doesn’t get much more Christmassy than The Nutcracker and First State Ballet Theatre’s annual production continues to deliver festive magic and some striking performances.

Audiences at Saturday’s matinee were entranced by the classic story of a young girl’s Christmas Eve and her awakening to the wider world and romantic love.

Marie is the most innocent of ballet heroines, a tiny guileless protagonist around whom the magic of “The Nutcracker” unfolds.

Mary Kate Reynolds was superb as the Adult Marie, her pliant body and elegant feet a gorgeous instrument for Tchaikovsky’s sweeping score. She was never less than enchanted by the tricks and transformations that surrounded her. Her subtle changes in facial expressions and impeccable timing conveyed a sense of childlike wonder.

But The Nutcracker is a company ballet, and every member of the cast was at the top of their games. Reynolds was partnered with Jake Nowicki’s gallant Prince. John Brewer gave the character of Drosselmeyer a mix of severity and playfulness. The mechanical dolls (Angele Zielen, Rie Aoki and Leonid Goykham) delighted all. Goykham and Justin Estelle, portraying the Mouse King and the Nutcracker respectively, were impressive with their amazing jumping abilities and thrilling sword fight.

The audience was then magically transported to the Land of the Sweets. John Brewer and Aubrey Clemens made a fiery, flashy twosome in the Spanish. Richy Romero and Molly Rooney were convincing in the Chinese. Lauren Frere’s natural flexibility was put to dazzling use in the partnering of Lauren Anthony, Jessica Eizember, Kenzie Lemoine and Jamie Meyer in the Arabian. Andrew Matte and Ethan Hunter Raysor thrilled the audience in the Russian.

The Waltz of the Flowers is a perennial high point in The Nutcracker and Rie Aoki was a lyrical and finely detailed Flower Princess. The party cast members in the opening act managed to captivate with colorful expressions and animated scenarios. Jacqueline Taylor made for a wonderfully composed Young Marie while Kathy Lin as Fritz enjoyed making as much mischief as possible.

The Nutcracker has always been an uneven work. The first act is all story, while the second act is all dancing. Marie is still pretty much relegated to the sidelines with little to do but look entranced and occasionally join in the dancing. It’s a difficult role to animate but Reynolds does her best, giving us every imaginable shade of awe and delight.

This production coupled with Tchaikovsky’s evocative score capably delivered the age-old magic that is The Nutcracker.

See www.firststateballet.com.

Congratulate & Welcome Delaware's New Poets Laureate: The Twin Poets!

Photo courtesy of newsworks.org

This post compiled with info from delawareonline.com and WHYY's newsworks.org...
Delaware Arts Info is happy to celebrate spoken-word artists Al Mills and Nnamdi Chukwuocha --- known regionally as The Twin Poets --- as the First State's new Poets Laureate. As Delaware's 17th ambassadors of poetry, they are also the first to share the honorary title.

The 45-year-old identical twin brothers have been writing since they were children. Their prose have been featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and NPR’s Poetic License, and the pair has won numerous awards and toured nationally and internationally as part of their craft.

The duo were sworn in to their new appointments by Governor Jack Markell in a December 16 ceremony at the Delaware Art Museum. "You have got something to say that I think people need to hear," Markell said during the event. "People from all walks of life, who may not have ever come together otherwise, are going to hear this message." 

The two performed separate poems following the oath of office, with Mills reciting a new work entitled, The Beauty of the Journey. Mills and Chukwuocha hope not only to introduce children statewide to the art of prose but also to share their artistry through outreach to military bases, jails and prisons in Delaware. 

The Poet Laureate program is overseen by the Delaware Division of the Arts, which coordinates performances and associated programming for the the artists throughout the state.

Both men are social workers, and Chukwuocha is a Wilmington city councilman. Their father was community leader William “Hicks” Anderson, for whom the center on Madison Street is named.

See the Twin Poets perform on HBO's Def Comedy Jam.

Brandywine Baroque "Glitt'rs" in Latest Performance of Vivaldi & More

By Christine Facciolo

The program may have been titled “Winter’s Glitt’ring Sun” but it didn’t feel anything like winter on Sunday when Brandywine Baroque presented its second concert of the 2015-16 season.

The well-attended concert featured works by Italians Vivaldi, Tessarini, Leo and Facoli and a secular cantata by Englishman Thomas Arne.

The program was heavy on Vivaldi — no surprise there. Vivaldi’s fecundity never ceases to amaze. His reputation rests largely on a legacy of nearly 500 instrumental concerti. Yet this incredibly prolific composer was almost unheard of until the 1950s.

The concert opened with a performance of the Concerto for Strings in d minor, RV 128. This work was contained in one of 14 volumes discovered in 1926 sparking interest in the composer’s works.

All three movements are in the same key — unusual but not unprecedented for Vivaldi. It also adheres to the three movement fast-slow-fast order that he standardized. Double bassist Heather Miller Lardin reveled in the particularly active bass line of the Largo, while the entire ensemble engaged in a fugal finale bristling with energy and excitement.

Flutist Eileen Grycky soloed in two of Vivaldi’s flute concerti: the D major and the recently discovered d minor “il Gran Mogol” which received its Delaware premiere. Grycky’s delightful and highly musical formation of the flute solo lines on her mellow, woody instrument were a delight to the ears as was the full-blooded energetic orchestral accompaniment.

The strings had their say in a warm and sprightly reading of Vivaldi’s Concerto in G Major for Two Violins and Two Cellos, RV 575 — with Martin Davids and Kathleen Leidig, violins and John Mark Rozendaal and Donna Fournier, cellos.

Davids joined fellow violinists Leidig and Edmond Chan in a confident, well-balanced and precise rendering of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Three Violins in F Major, RV 551, creating ear-catching textures spiced by Vivaldian virtuosic runs and arpeggios.

The program also featured the works of other lesser-known Italian composers. Davids introduced the Concerto for Violin in A minor by his favorite composer, Carlo Tessarini, by saying he was luckier than Vivaldi because he didn’t wash out of the priesthood and wind up with an orphanage.

Jokes aside, this tricky and challenging music demands a performer with virtuoso credentials and Davids certainly has them, especially in the Allegros of this work.

Harpsichordist Joyce Chen’s elegant technique brought out the dimple counterpoint and right-hand embellishments in Marco Facoli’s Padoana prima dita Marucina & Salterello.

Leonardo Leo’s concerti give little opportunity for virtuosic display; instead, the cello weaves its way in and out of the texture in a relaxed way. This performance by John Mark Rozendaal of the Concerto No. 3 in F minor is appropriately low-key, with the tricky problem of giving the instrument its proper prominence solved with admirable clarity.

Soprano Laura Heimes performed the only non-Italian work on the program: Thomas Arne’s Cantata V: “The Morning” from Six Cantatas. It is always a pleasure to hear Heimes’ bright warm voice in concert. But this work displayed her virtuosity, as these areas demand astonishing breath control, mastery of coloratura and apt decoration. The interaction between voice and instruments proved engaging and inventive.

See www.brandywinebaroque.org.