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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 21, 2002
Operatic match made in heaven
The great operatic marriage is that of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, above. Dubbed Cav and Pag, the two short works invariably are paired together. Premiered in 1890 and 1892, respectively, with librettos recounting illicit affairs, jealousy and murder, they launched the realistic movement in opera called verismo.
"They seem to be made for each other," said Anton Coppola, who is conducting the double bill for Opera Tampa this weekend. "Cav and Pag just go together. It's the same locale, practically, the same period, the same treatment of the elemental passions that these peasants express. It all just pours out in the music."
Cast members include Allison Charney, Paul Hartfield and Theodore Lambrinos. Movie note: It was Cavalleria Rusticana that Coppola conducted in his appearance in his nephew Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather III.
There are two performances of Cav and Pag, at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in Morsani Hall of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $24.50-$59.50. (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045 or www.tbpac.org.
John Adams is the most-performed living American composer, and Harmonielehre was his first large-scale orchestral work, premiering in 1985. With the title taken from Schoenberg's textbook on tonal harmony, it was a minimalist's homage to various romantic composers.
"It is a large, three-movement work for orchestra that marries the developmental techniques of minimalism with the harmonic and expressive world of fin de siecle late romanticism," Adams said. "The shades of Mahler, Sibelius, Debussy and the young Schoenberg are everywhere in this strange piece."
Guest conductor Michael Christie leads the Florida Orchestra in Adams' Harmonielehre on a program that also includes Anne Akiko Meyers, above, in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Copland's Three Latin American Sketches.
Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday at Ferguson Hall of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 8 p.m. Saturday at the Mahaffey Theater at Bayfront Center and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Tickets: $20-$42. (813) 286-2403 or toll-free 1-800-662-7286, or www.floridaorchestra.org.
Within the past decade, Ragamala Music and Dance Theater has established itself as a leading light in the rich arts scene of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Co-founder Ranee Ramaswamy "has astounded audiences with works that expand one's perceptions of dance, cross-cultural collaboration and spiritual meaning," Camille LeFevre wrote in Minneapolis' Star Tribune. Ragamala, on a Florida tour, has a residency this week at Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center. The company's public performance Friday is From Temple to Theater, which celebrates Uday Shankar, who brought Indian classical dance out of the temple sanctuaries and royal households and into the western theater format. Music ranges from Japanese Taiko drumming to the hip-hop of Zap Mama.
Ragamala today gives two performances for schoolchildren of Return of the Rain Seed, above, a folk tale in which a young girl saves her village by defeating the demon who has swallowed the Rain Seed.
Friday's performance of From Temple to Theater is at 8 p.m. at Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $14, $16. (727) 942-5605.