A society that embraces the beauty and creativity of art is a society with the potential to expand beyond bounds.
The Reno Chamber Orchestra’s third finalist for Music Director is Maestro Martin Majkut talks to Norm Robins about the history of Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) and growing up in a country going through turbulent times. The Maestro also tells us of what we will be hearing this weekend as he takes the baton for The Reno Chamber Orchestra.
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Born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), Majkut graduated from the State Conservatory and served as Assistant Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic while earning his Ph.D. in conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts. While studying, he worked with the Slovak Philharmonic, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic and Slovak Sinfonietta.
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Pirates, slave girls, pashas, eunuchs, heroes, a spurned wife, damsels in love and in distress, flamboyant costumes, 120 dancers, a shipwreck (what’s a ballet without a shipwreck?), this ballet has them all. Originally done a century ago, based on a poem of the same name by Byron, and choreographed by Marius Petipa, Le Corsaire has been gloriously updated and rechoreographed by Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Burlaka.
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Music is magnificent! It soothes the soul. It tames the savage beast. It unites people of different countries and different philosophies. I don’t need to speak German to be captivated by a Beethoven symphony. I can be the smartest person in the world or have a room temperature IQ. Either way, I can be put at peace with man and God listening to an old Ella Fitzgerald recording.
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For its second live in HD transmission of the 2019-20 season, the Met has chosen Jules Massenet’s wonderfully melodic, Manon – a deliciously French take on the tragic story of Manon Lescaut (also made into a deliciously Italian opera by Puccini – but that’s another story!). A teenage girl from the country – far too pretty for her own good – is sent alone to the outskirts of Paris to be met by her cousin and escorted to a convent. Her non-too vigilant, and non-too-upstanding, cousin allows her to catch a glimpse of the decidedly un-convent-like life of actresses who are enjoying the company of wealthy “patrons”–and the rest, as we say, is history.
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The Bolshoi Ballet kicks off its 2019/20 season with their storied production of Raymonda. First performed at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg on January 19, 1898, it was choreographed by the legendary Marius Petipa for the Russian Imperial Ballet set to the stirring music of Alexander Glazunov.
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The Reno Chamber Orchestra opens its 2019/20 season Saturday, October 19th at 7:30 PM and Sunday, October 20th at 2 PM under the baton of its second candidate for permanent conductor Donato Cabrera. They will choose from the 6 finalist candidates in the Spring of 2020.
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Joker is a tale set in a city named Gotham, Gotham of Batman fame that is. A figure named Thomas Wayne is the principal antagonist of our mad protagonist. Capitalism is the enemy. Wayne, running for mayor of Gotham is the nexus between the corporate state and its citizens. Corporations enslave, imprison, murder, and drive mad the helpless millions. Our abused and marginalized hero strikes back, and the oppressed millions join him making his personal madness a national sickness. This cautionary tale argues that anarchy may be preferable to slavery.
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From Wagner to Berg, from Gershwin to Glass, from Handel to Puccini – there is literally something for everyone this season. We ended last season with Verdi’s grandest spectacle opera, Aida; so what better way to begin the new season than with Puccini’s grandest spectacle opera, Turandot. That’s TEWR-ən-dot. With the T! Remember – Puccini was Italian – not French – hence most people agree on “dot” not “doh”! Actually, the name of the opera is based on a name in ancient Persian poetry for a Central Asian princess, Turan-Dokht (daughter of Turan). But I digress – since Puccini decided to make her Chinese, not Persian, there is a decidedly Chinese flavor to this particular spectacle, and a never ending debate on dot or doh!
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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.