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Tumbles and triumphs

The performing arts provided many memorable moments in 2005 in exquisite, gutsy performances as well as a few missteps and farewells.

By JOHN FLEMING
Published December 29, 2005

	[Times photo: Lara Cerri]
	Cirque de Soleil brought Varekai to the Grand Chapiteau in the Tropicana Field parking lot in St. Petersburg.
	[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
	Music director Stefan Sanderling conducted the Florida Orchestra from a chair after breaking his foot in the summer.
	[Times photo: Publicity photo]
	Stiffelio was a highlight of Sarasota Opera's strong season.
	[AP photo]
	The great diva Jessye Norman, here performing at the U.S. Open in 2004, brought an intense, nuanced atmosphere to her recital.

Singing. It always comes down to singing, I sometimes think. Singing is the most basic of musical expressions, and by that standard, 2005 wasn't a bad year for the performing arts in the Tampa Bay area.

If I had to pick a No. 1 highlight, it would probably be Dvorak's Requiem, performed by the Florida Orchestra and Master Chorale of Tampa Bay. This Requiem - unlike those of Mozart and Verdi - is rarely heard in the United States, and it turns out to be full of beautiful writing for the voice. The chorale, prepared by Richard Zielinski, was inspired, and the vocal quartet had one powerful soloist, bass Stephen Powell.

Sarasota Opera had a strong season, with two relative rarities well worth seeking out, Verdi's rough-hewn drama on infidelity and forgiveness, Stiffelio, and Delibes' Lakme, known for its enchanting Lotus Blossom Duet (the British Airways theme) and soaring Bell Song. The Lakme cast featured a sensational young soprano in the title role, Eglise Gutierrez.

Singers Erin Wall, Monica Mancini and Lisa Vroman were excellent soloists with the Florida Orchestra: Wall in a program of opera arias; Mancini in songs of her father, the great Hollywood composer Henry Mancini; and Vroman in Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins.

Along with these three, my favorite evenings with the orchestra tended to be in Russian repertoire, including the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2 with Michael Sanderling, younger brother of music director Stefan, as the soloist; the Rachmaninoff festival with all four piano concertos plus Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini; and a passionate Prokofiev Fifth Symphony under former music director Jahja Ling.

Another musical moment to cherish from 2005 was Jessye Norman's recital, which demonstrated that if her voice isn't quite what it used to be, nobody brings such intense, nuanced atmosphere to an art song as the great diva.

For pure intellectualism, Midori's recital was a treat, especially her traversal of a Bach sonata for solo violin.

Bay area presenters kept the flag flying for new music. The Emit series brought in avant-garde legend Pauline Oliveros, whose accordion improvisations blended nicely with ambient noise from the street. On the Encore series, Mark Sforzini premiered his French-flavored Symphony for Seven Players.

Whereas musical institutions like the Florida Orchestra and Sarasota Opera continue to come up with interesting work, theater in these parts seems to be in a slump. The Asolo Theatre, which should be the regional leader, has done little I have felt I really had to see during the risk-averse tenure of producing artistic director Howard Millman, who retires in 2006.

American Stage does solid work, but its shows didn't generate a lot of excitement this year. The biggest news from the theater was its announcement that a 20-year tradition of performing Shakespeare under the stars in the spring was coming to an end. Perhaps that will clear the way for the company to take some creative chances.

The top two plays I saw this year were both produced by Anna Brennen's Stageworks, and both by British playwrights: Copenhagen, Michael Frayn's speculation about a 1941 meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg that may have had profound consequences for the Third Reich's project to build the atom bomb; and A Number, the latest in gritty, stripped-down dialogue from Caryl Churchill.

On tour, musical theater ruled as it has for years, but the market is starting to look a bit shopworn, with its perennial revivals of the same golden oldies and cobbled-together makework such as On the Record, a revue of Disney songs that was pointless. The most appealing road shows were the ones you'd expect because they were hits on Broadway: Hairspray, with its infectious cotton-candy score, and Twyla Tharp's ballet to Billy Joel songs, Movin' Out.

In a category all its own was Varekai, the third Cirque du Soleil show to play the bay area and as inventive and thrilling as ever. Like a Wagnerian opera, a Cirque production has an almost maniacal - and brilliant - obsession to create a unique little world unto itself, and audiences can't get enough. Varekai continues through Saturday in St. Petersburg.

Nationally, the musical event of the year for me was John Adams' awesome new opera, Doctor Atomic, which premiered at San Francisco Opera. On Broadway, the best theater I saw was Adam Guettel's musical on Americans in Italy, The Light in the Piazza, and John Patrick Shanley's potent drama on the crisis of the Catholic church, Doubt.

This year had the usual complement of mishaps, from comic to tragic to somewhere in between. On the lighter side, soloist Demarre McGill fainted during his playing of John Corigliano's flute concerto, Pied Piper Fantasy, with the Florida Orchestra. The flutist fell into the lap of a violinist and recovered smartly to finish the performance.

A production of Aida by Opera Tampa and Orlando Opera had a similar potential disaster that wound up with a happy ending. When soprano Marquita Lister, in the title role, inhaled a dust ball in the final scene of Verdi's grand opera, she lost her voice. But after a pause, and thanks to some fast thinking by stage managers, as well as the game performers, Lister remained on stage to mime her part in the tomb duet while it was sung from the wings by mezzo-soprano Stacey Rishoi.

Florida Orchestra music director Stefan Sanderling deserves a Purple Heart. He took a tumble down a flight of stairs over the summer and broke a foot, among other injuries, but the show must go on. Sanderling has conducted while seatedso far this season, but appeared to be on the mend last week during Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, standing to lead some of the big choruses of the Ode to Joy.

In September, Mark Spano unveiled the most ambitious season ever for the Palladium Theater, but three months later, the executive director was gone because of management differences with the board of directors. LiveArts Peninsula Foundation folded not long after its third major Florida-themed production, a musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice set in frontier Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, got a lukewarm reception. Ann Reinking stepped down as artistic director of the Broadway Theatre Project, the theater training program she founded in Tampa in 1991.

On a somber note, it was shocking and sad to observe the downfall of violinist Stewart Kitts, the Florida Orchestra's longtime associate concertmaster whose life spiraled out of control because of crack addiction, leading to his removal from the orchestra and a string of drug-related arrests.

The orchestra lost a steadfast friend, pops music director laureate Skitch Henderson, who died in November. Skitch had done it all in the music world, and he was always gracious in sharing his wonderful stories and droll insights with a music journalist. I feel fortunate to have known him.

- John Fleming can be reached at 727 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 28, 2005, 09:18:06]