Performance

Gary Tischler • December 4, 2014

“Little Dancer,” the ravishing,from-the-ground-up, entirely original Kennedy Center musical with Broadway hopes has finally had its official opening—and not a moment too soon.

In the age of Disney and Spiderman, “Little Dancer” is a musical that’s about something—in fact, several things, that matter. The musical, a radically and beautifully imaginative example of the form, tells the tale of a wispy, but gritty, adolescent, one-step-from-the-gutter aspiring ballerina in the La Belle Epoch Paris Opera Company who inspired Impressionist painter and sculptor Eduard Degas to create one of his most enduring works, the sculpture “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” (now the center of a mini-exhibition at the National Gallery of Art).

Carrying on that idea of inspiration, everyone involved in this production seems to have been inspired into daring acts of the imagination. This is as show about art—not just the ballet and ballet dancers—but also artists and their work, famous ones including Degas, and his good friend, the American expatriate impressionist Mary Cassatt. Like “Follies,” a revival of “Ragtime” and the currently on-Broadway “Sideshow,” “Little Dancer” is a Kennedy Center production. All are marked by originality of a sort that you rarely encounter in musical theater.

Factually, we know that a 14-year-old girl named Marie van Goethem was the model for the Degas sculpture and that she was a member of the dance troupe, one of the so-called “rats,” young girls dragged up from the depths of poverty to fill the ranks of the corps de ballet, girls often the focus of predatory toffs in black top hats and tuxes who prowled backstage. The real Marie disappeared from history only to have a kind of forever re-incarnation in the form of the famous sculpture. “Little Dancer” purports to tell how this journey across time happened.

A terrific team has been assembled to make this enterprise a success. A passion for dance, for instance, obviously fuels director Susan Strohman, who gave us the wonderful dance show, “Contact,” a number of years ago. “Little Dancer” is in the end about movement, from the mobile and dazzling sets of Beowulf Boritt, to the keenly sharp and detailed, and pleasure-inducing moments when we see the dancers truly dance. It’s about getting from here to there, from mind-to-heart, from song to feeling. Lyricist Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty have come up with a book and songs and music that define the show and is in service to the story, smart, witty, empathic and passionate, reminiscent of their work on “Ragtime.”

The focus of “Little Dancer” is Marie, and in the elfin, dynamic American Ballet Theatre star Tiler Peck, the show has found its heart, its dazzler, who embodies all of Marie’s hopes, fears, dreams and travails. When she takes to the air, the show goes right with her. Small and beautiful, she still has the look of an urchin on the verge of becoming a special artist. Some observers have grumbled that she’s neither a singer or an actress. I beg to differ—her singing more often than not is of the sort that’s folded into duets or groups and doesn’t need to stand out, but her acting, that’s another matter. Peck acts the way dancers act—with their bodies, with their moves and movements, and Peck surely does this with her dances (she has the hang time of Michael Jordan at apogee), which illustrates human aspirations of flight. But she carries this over into what Marie does—she’s never still. Some part of her body—expressive face, butterfly hands, fluttery feet and legs, head out or down—some expression and emotion is making its move. Only when she poses for Degas—for drawings, sketches and the sculpture itself does she become peaceful, attaining some sort of sense and picture of herself.

The production and all of its aspects paints a gaudy, detailed picture of Paris in the Impressionist age. The sets have aspects of paintings, and it achieves something remarkable—you can get giddy watching that world, without being able to ignore its harsher aspects. That would be the plight of Marie’s alcoholic laundress mother, the deflating punch of poverty without hope, the prowling men in their silk hats, the overbearing patrons of the arts.

That world is the world of Degas, too, who was obsessed with painting the world and its inhabitants. He takes an interest in Marie after she steals his watch and has her pose for him. Ultimately, Degas starts to lose his sight and despairs of painting. The pushy Marie says, “Why don’t you use your hands?”

Throughout , there is an older, more imagined Marie, dressed in middle class finery, who has returned to her beginnings upon the death of Degas, wanting to find out what happened to the sculpture which she’s never seen. Broadway veteran Rebecca Luker makes her a warm, and fine-voiced presence. She’s our guide through Marie’s world and her own past.

Boyd Gaines as Degas gives a sharp portrait of a genius at work and his relationship with Marie. He is inspired but also maddened by her and determined to show people and things as they are without having to prettify Marie.

In all its components and parts, “Little Dancer” sweeps you up, carries you along and brings you to where we are today in a theatrical way that at its end is such a pleasurable, generous act of magic—a perfect execution of an act of arrival and ending that shines.

“Little Dancer” is at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater through Nov. 30.
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Gary Tischler •

American soprano Alyson Cambridge is one busy opera star these days.

Talking during a brief stay in Washington—she performed before the Supreme Court in a recital, sponsored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—Cambridge, who grew up in Arlington, Va., went to Sidwell Friends School and the Levine School of Music, was preparing to go to Chicago this week. She will return Dec. 1 to take part in the “2014 Christmas Concert for the Troops” at the Kennedy Center. That still leaves her performance in Las Vegas at the 2014 Soul Train Awards, which will air Sunday, Nov. 30, on BET at 8 p.m.

“It’s been kind of amazing, that’s for sure,” Cambridge said in an interview with The Georgetowner. “To be able to do all this in so many different venues and occasions. It’s a great opportunity for myself and opera. I feel very lucky, and I’ve worked very hard.”

Cambridge, a rangy soprano with red-carpet beauty and style, has of late become especially familiar with roles for the Washington National Opera, where she just finished up an acclaimed performance as Musetta in Puccini’s “La Boheme.” Before that she had been a highly effective and affecting, moving Julie in WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello’s s production of “Showboat.” Zambello also directed her in London as Mimi in”La Boheme,” which she will also do for the San Diego Opera this season, as well as performing as Bess in “Porgy and Bess” with the Spoleto Festival USA.

“I absolutely love working with Francesca,” Cambridge said. “She is such a risk taker, such a visionary. I guess in a way I think of her as my opera godmother. She has had so much faith in me, and I’ve learned not to be afraid to take risks from her.”

One of those risks is a burning desire to branch out into other genres, other kinds of music. “I would never give up opera,” Cambridge said. “But I like to explore other kinds of music the great American songbook, jazz and pop. And it’s also a way to broaden your audience, to give other people a chance to hear you and see you. I know ‘Showboat’ and certainly ‘Porgy and Bess’ can be seen technically as operas, but they’re also seen as musicals in the traditional sense of the word. The singing, the songs and the music is different from traditional opera music. They’re truly American works.”

With Cambridge, the seeing is part and parcel of the entire package. She is a vivacious presence—and voice on the phone—who’s often been compared to the equally glamorous pop star Vanessa Williams in her style and looks, which, from a host of images on the web, seems equally sexy, high-cheek-boned exotic, and classy, combined with an original sense of style and fashion. “I like trying new things, new looks,” said Cambridge, whose father is African-American-Caribbean and whose mother is Scandinavian-American.

Her opera career was launched auspiciously, when she became one of the youngest ever Grand Prize winners of the international opera competition at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. This recognition led to seven seasons at the Met along with a major, still growing national and international career, abetted with recitals, recordings and performances at the great opera houses.

“The BET thing was very different,” Cambridge said. “I had performed in BET and Centric’s documentary and concert ‘Of Thee We Sing: The Marian Anderson Story,’ which they liked. So, they asked me to do this.” The show celebrates the musical accomplishments of R&B, soul and hip-hop artists. It will include performances by Chris Brown, Elle Varner, Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliot and MC Lyte. “And then there’s me,” Cambridge said. “This will be the first time an opera singer has been on the Soul Train awards. I’ll be doing some selections from ‘La Boheme’ and a vocal arrangement in which hip-hop connects with classical, which is a challenge for me. But I heard that the show gets something like an audience of 4.5 million—which is probably more than I’ve had in my whole career. But think of the opportunities for opera in this. It’s like being an opera ambassador to the world of contemporary pop and hip hop.”

On Monday, Dec. 1, Cambridge will be doing something very different at the Kennedy Center, joining stars like Charlie Daniels, Marlee Martin, Kristin Chenoweth, Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band, the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra and Medal of Honor recipient SFC Sammy Davis for the Christmas concert for the troops. The concert is sponsored by the Gary Sinise Foundation, which honors the country’s defenders, veterans, first responders and their families.”

“I am so glad to be able to do this and feel honored,” said Cambridge, who will sing “Ave Maria” and “White Christmas.”

“I love being in the world of opera,” she said. “But I also love the great American Songbook composers like Gershwin. Cambridge lives in New York and remembers walking her dog Lucy—a poodle-bichon—and strolling past the Gershwin home on her route. “It gave me goose bumps,” she said.

Gary Tischler • December 3, 2014

Nutcrackers and Scrooges

At the Washington Ballet, it’s the 10th anniversary of Artistic Director Septime Webre’s production of “The Nutcracker” (Nov. 29-30, THE ARC, and Dec. 4-28, Warner Theatre). It’s set in 1882 Georgetown, no less, and features George Washington as the heroic Nutcracker.

Olney Theatre Center will present Mary Day’s “The Nutcracker,” directed by Patricia Berrend with choreography by Washington Ballet founder Mary Day, performed by students and dancers from Washington-area ballet schools (Dec. 12-24). Also at Olney: actor Paul Morella’s one-man version of “A Christmas Carol, A Ghost Story of Christmas,” in the tradition of Dickens himself (Nov 28-Dec. 28).
“A Christmas Carol” has been a traditional mainstay at Ford’s Theatre (Nov. 20-Jan. 1). For the last five years, in an adaptation by Michael Wilson directed by Michael Baron, Edward Gero has taken on the role of Scrooge, the misbegotten miser who must learn the meaning of Christmas. One of the Washington area’s most brilliant actors, Gero will play Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia this spring at Arena Stage.

The 21st Century Consort presents Jon Deak’s “A Christmas Carol” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum with baritone William Sharp as Scrooge (Dec. 6), along with Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” and George Crumb’s “Little Suite for Christmas.”

At Bethesda’s Round House Theatre,“The Nutcracker,” a new version created by Tommy Rapley, Jake Minton, Phillip Klapperich and Kevin O’Donnell weaves together “spellbinding spectacle, riveting dialogue, astonishing puppetry and an original score” (Nov. 26-Dec. 28).

At Adventure Theatre, “Tiny Tim’s Christmas Carol,” adapted by prolific Washington playwright Ken Ludwig (“Lend Me a Tenor,” “Crazy About You”), adapted Dickens’s classic tale with Jack Ludwig, telling the story through the eyes of Tiny Tim. Directed by Jerry Whiddon, the show runs through Jan. 1.

More for the Family

The Gift of Nothing (Nov. 22-Dec. 28, Kennedy Center Family Theater) – A world premiere Kennedy Center commission, this musical – conceived and written by Patrick McDonnell, Aaron Posner and Erin Weaver, directed by Posner with music and lyrics by Andy Mitton – tells the tale of Mooch, a cat, who wants something special for his friend Earl, a puppy. Both are characters from the comic strip “Mutts.”

The Little Prince (Dec. 19-21, Kennedy Center Terrace Theater) – Washington National Opera’s holiday family opera is based on the magical, mystical book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Originally staged by WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, the production, with a remarkable score by Oscar-winning composer Rachel Portman, is sung in English.

Musicals, Musicals, Musicals

It has been 50 years since the American musical classic “Fiddler on the Roof” first became a smash on Broadway, with the late, great and iconic Zero Mostel starring as Tevye, the much-put-upon Jewish shtetl milkman with his five daughters, his daily conversations with the Man Above and the constant threat of eviction and pogroms. Since that time, the musical has been revived and redone and restored many times. This time, Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith continues her exploration of the American musical with a new, in-the-round production at the Fichandler (through Jan. 4). Jonathan Hadary heads an exceptional cast, which in this setting becomes an intimate, as well as a musically rousing experience.

Five Guys Named Moe (through Dec. 28, Arena Stage Kreeger Theater) – This highly original, soul-and-blues-flavored musical showcases the music and lyrics of Louis Jordan. Known as the King of the Jukebox, Jordan was one of the great composers of songs that make you jump. The Five Guys Named Moe? Count ’em: Big Moe, Four-Eyed Moe, Eat Moe, No Moe and Little Moe.

Diner (Signature Theatre, Dec. 9-Jan. 25) – Pop-rock chanteuse Sheryl Crow and film director Barry Levinson provide the sound and feel of this world-premiere musical based on Levinson’s classic film about growing up in Baltimore.

Pippin (Dec. 16-Jan. 4, National Theatre) – This all-new production of Roger O. Hirson and Stephen Schwartz’s “Pippin” was directed by Diane Paulus with choreography by Chet Walker in the style of Bob Fosse. It stars Kyle Dean Massey in the title role, John Rubinstein (the original Pippin in 1972) as his father and Lucie Arnaz as Berthe.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Dec. 16-Jan. 4, Kennedy Center Opera House) – Husband-and-wife team Diana DeGarmo and Ace Young star in the groundbreaking rock musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

More in the Christmas Spirit

Theater Alliance’s Black Nativity (Nov. 29-Dec. 7, Bowie State University; Dec. 11-Jan. 4, Anacostia Playhouse) – The Langston Hughes Christmas classic “Black Nativity” comes to life, directed by Eric Ruffin with music director e’Marcus Harper-Short and choreographer Princess Mhoon.

Donny & Marie: Christmas at the National (Dec. 2-7) – Still going strong, siblings Donnie and Marie Osmond mix holiday songs with music from their Osmond family days, brother-and-sister act and solo careers. There’s a good chance that “Paper Roses” and “It Takes Two” will slip in with the seasonal tunes.

Wolf Trap Holiday Sing-A-Long (Dec. 6, Filene Center) – Sing along with the United States Marine Band and D.C.-area choirs and vocal groups.

NPR’s A Jazz Piano Christmas (Dec. 12, Kennedy Center Terrace Theater) – Top jazz pianists Harold Mabern, Kris Davis, Lynne Arriale and Cyrus Chestnut perform holiday favorites.

The Embassy Series will commemorate the heroic spirit of the Battle of the Bulge with a special holiday program of songs and cabaret, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” at the Embassy of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Dec. 12-13). The Thomas Circle Singers will appear on Dec. 13.

Megan Hilty’s A Kennedy Center Christmas (Dec. 13, Kennedy Center Terrace Theater) – The sassy, classy and classic Broadway star ushers in the season with holiday music and songs from the American songbook.

The Cathedral Choral Society’s “Joy of Christmas” (Dec. 13) brings the Washington Symphonic Brass and the C.D. Hylton High School Troubadours to the National Cathedral for a program that includes the procession of the Advent wreath and carol sing-alongs.

The Folger Consort’s “A Renaissance Christmas” at the Folger Theatre (Dec. 16-23) is a program of music of Flanders and Italy performed by winds, viol, lute and a quintet of voices.

A Kennedy Center tradition, the National Symphony Orchestra will perform Handel’s “Messiah” (Dec. 18-21).

“Christmas with the King’s Singers” (Dec. 21) is a concert of traditional and modern Christmas carols performed by the renowned English a capella sextet at the National Cathedral.

Coming up at the Music Center at Strathmore – Pianist George Winston (Nov. 30), Dave Koz and Friends (Dec. 9), Motown celebration with the Temptations and the Four Tops (Dec. 12), Mannheim Streamroller Christmas (Dec. 13).
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Gary Tischler • November 26, 2014

Mike Nichols died Wednesday at the age of 83, leaving behind a mountain of stuff—plays, movies, musicals and comedies, television movies, some jokes and shticks, pearls of wisdoms, a few flops here and there, having lived a big life fully rounded out so that it leaves a big imprint in the world, and in particular, the world of theatrical art—be it movie theaters, a flat-screen television or a cineplex.

Still, when you contemplate that mountain of work with the honors it engendere —pictures pop in your mind: the young Nichols (with his partner in standup and recorded comedy Elaine May), a kind of smart and confident grin on his face, thin black tie, as if he knew something and what it was would be smart and funny. Even though many of the films and movies (some were films, some were movies) treaded into dark and moody waters, there was something sharp as well as insouciant about his directorial touch, a distanced lightness that often proved irresistible.

And a question arose: Who knew he was 83?

In his pictures—even though in his last years, he looked frail, such as when he received the Tony for best direction for the 2012 revival of “Death of a Salesman” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman—he still managed also to look like somebody who could take over the role of Puck from “Midsummer,” still boyish in his years.

We all—some more than others—remember his first successes—the film version of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” Edward Albee’s poetic screaming match, the Liz and Dick show at its apex, with Burton giving one of his finest performances in 1966 and the groundbreaking “The Graduate,” starring Dustin Hoffman as a naïf who was seduced by Mrs. Robinson—aka Ann Bancroft—and told to go into “plastics” in 1967. That film spoke to a generation of young people as much as Bob Dylan did—they listened to him and Simon and Garfunkel, if they happened to be less political but more sensitive. Nichols won an Oscar for Best Director.

In 1967, he made his Broadway debut directing a slim romcom of the theater called “Barefoot in the Park,” starring the soon to be uber-star Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. Nichols won a Tony for Best Director, the first of nine. (“Death of a Salesman” was the last). He achieved EGOT, winning four Emmys, one Grammy, one Oscar and Nine Tonys.

This from a guy who entered life as one Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, born in Berlin, the son of soon-to-be-Russian-Jewish immigrants to New York. The record has it that he and his younger brother were sent to the United States in 1939, to escape the Nazis. He was an actor, bought horses, and was married four times, the last to the elegantly blonde newscaster Diane Sawyer, since 1988.

His forays into theater began with his stand up act with his good friend May from a troupe in Chicago which eventually became Second City, from which a generation of Saturday Night Live performers erupted.

But it’s the work on screen, the work on stage (and two spectacular forays into cable films, “Angels in America” and “Wit,” adapted from plays) that mattered and are, if not exactly revealing or telling about Nichols, the private man, certainly about Nichols and his ingenious gift for diversity and versatility.

Yet, the lightness prevails in almost everything he touched. It prevailed in an obvious way in directing Neil Simon plays for instance, and any number of classic plays, but also in some of his sharper work on screen—the dark, almost ugly “Carnal Knowledge,” in which Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel played harried and competitive skirt chasers, the smart comedy “Heartburn,” set mostly in Washington (with some of it filmed in Georgetown), with Nicholson and Meryl Streep channeling Carl Bernstein and Norah Ephron, and the hugely popular “Working Girl,” starring Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford.

He could do anything—the song “Be A Clown” comes up for air often, especially in the gut-splitting “The Birdcage,” a sort of straight (no music) version of “La Cauge aux Folles”, which featured Robin Williams, the irrepressible Nathan Lane, and a very funny Gene Hackman.

You never knew with Nichols: there would be the Simons-“Plaza Suite” and “The Odd Couple,” followed by a production of “Uncle Vanya,” the horrifyingly tough anti-war play “Streamers,” Tom Stoppard’s incisive play about marriage, “The Real Thing,” “The Seagull” and, finally, “Death of a Salesman.” Of course, who could have predicted in this bunch a producing credit for “Annie,” or a directing credit, yes, for “Spamalot.”

He also had duds: “Billy Bishop Goes to War” and “Fools” on stage, ‘Day of the Dolphin” and “What Planet are You From?” in film.

Nichols’ version of Joseph Heller’s cult classic “Catch 22” is considered one of his duds by many critics. But if a criteria for a fine film is the fact that, after a number of decades, you still remember World War II bombers, rising and falling at an Italian airfield, Alan Arkin as the anarchic hero, Yossarian trying logically and helplessly to stay alive, and a bewildering Major Major, then failure, though it might have been, it succeeded in capturing an elusive book. It operated like a giant hallucination in 1970, which now seems like a hallucination, too.

That mountain that Nichols left behind, that’s no hallucination. That’s real.

Gary Tischler •

It’s fair to say that violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has reached iconic status. According to one writer: “If Yo-Yo Ma is the reigning god of classical music, Anne-Sophie Mutter is the goddess.”

Mutter would probably decline either honor – goddess or icon. “I don’t like looking back every day,” she said in a telephone interview with The Georgetowner. “Music to me is about moving forward.”

It’s not that she’s notably restless, but that she believes in living a full life. The program for her Nov. 23 Kennedy Center performance, under the auspices of Washington Performing Arts, is emblematic of her passions and interests, musical and otherwise.

She will be playing with the Mutter Virtuosi, a 14-member string orchestra of young scholars and professionals, alumni of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. Supporting young musicians is one her passions. Another is giving exposure to the works of contemporary composers. The program includes “Ringtone Variations,” written in 2011 by Mutter favorite Sebastian Currier on the theme of everybody’s favorite possession and irritant, the cell phone.

Juxtaposing “Ringtone Variations” with Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and Mendelssohn’s “Octet” may be a little dizzying. Majestically romantic, Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” is as familiar as a waltz. “I know everybody loves it, but it’s not that simple. It’s a complicated work. I think it’s been somewhat abused by people who used it as elevator music,” she says. “‘Ringtones’ to me, I’ve never heard music that is so dense. The notes seem to be traveling from the moon.”

On the phone, Mutter is fully engaged. Her voice is warm, with a hint of a German accent. She was raised in the Black Forest region and today lives in Munich. Apart from her extraordinary talent, some of her fame comes from being a classically beautiful woman that age has made few intrusions upon.

“I think sometimes there’s too much emphasis and too much talk about that, the appearance, how musicians look and appear on stage,” she said. “The music is everything, and live performance is unique and central to this.”

In some critical quarters, there are grumbles about her having something of a cool persona as a performer. “I don’t understand that,” she said. “I’m not an actress. It’s always about the music. I saw a woman, a violinist, once, who sat absolutely on a chair, hardly moved at all, except with bow and fingers. And the most remarkable music would come forth, and it was to me an act of magic.”

The 2011 Deutsche Grammophon release of a huge boxed set of her recordings was a long way and time from 1978 when, as a teenager, she began her performing career at the Lucerne Festival. A year later, she performed at the Salzburg Whitsun Concerts under famed conductor Herbert von Karajan.

She’s performed at the Kennedy Center frequently over the years. “This is a wonderful city to perform in, to visit. I head straight to the museums when I’m here.”

She also exercises (passionately, we’re guessing), loves Rilke, reads Marquez and for a time was listening to Elvis. Lately she has been listening to jazz vocalist Madeleine Peyroux.

Mutter herself sounds a bit jazzy at times. She’s funny, with a sly sense of humor, and says she once – before her destiny took over – wanted to be a clown. Her life in full comes across in her voice and, of course, in her playing, which always brings out the bottomless depths of the music. She says: “How you play a piece changes all the time and so does the music. But it’s that connection that’s important: musician, violin, composer, audience.”

Gary Tischler • November 24, 2014

It’s been quite a time for celebration at the Washington Ballet for artistic director Septime Webre and his company.

The big news came this past week when it was announced that the Washington Ballet would mount its first-ever production of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” on April 5. The production marks an even more historic occasion with the presence of star American Ballet Theatre ballerina and celebrity Misty Copeland in the starring roles of Odette/Odile. Copeland, still on the raise to becoming one of America’s most celebrated ballerinas, is only the second African-American ballerina to be promoted to soloist at the American Ballet Theatre.

She’ll be matched with TWB Company dancer Brooklyn Mack, a pre-eminent African-American male dancer.

“The pairing of these two great African-American classical dancers redefines the typical notions of what a ballet dancer should look like, and is a model for where classical ballet is going,” Webre said.

Copeland said, “I am charmed about this pairing for my U.S. debut in ‘Swan Lake,’ a historic production with two African-American leads who will perform this unique production. It certainly goes against traditional casting and I am incredibly excited to share the stage with Brooklyn Mack.”

Webre said that this production—which the company has never attempted—was about five years in the works. “I knew Misty, but not that well until she did some work with youngsters in Anacostia. Watching her dealing with the kids was amazing. She’s a marvelous dancer, and it’s just amazing to have her for this.”

In addition, “Swan Lake” will also launch a creative collaboration between the Washington Ballet and the S&R Foundation’s Evermay Chamber Orchestra, which will perform the famed Tschaikovsky score. The Evermay Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble of solo-caliber artists from five continents, assembled by the S&R Foundation Washington Award Grand Prize Winner Tamaki Kawakubo.

“We have been leading up to ‘Swan Lake’ for some time,” Webre said. “We have been slowly and carefully working the classic 19th century repertoire into our company—we did ‘Le Sylphides,’ ‘Don Quixote,’ ‘Le Corsaire,’ and ‘Giselle’ last year, in which our company excelled so beautifully.”

“It’s a big step forward for us—it requires tremendous resources, of course, a depth of dancers, and I think we’re ready to do so. It’s challenging and it tests everybody, it may be a stretch, but a stretch is what makes dancers and the company better. And it’s wonderful to have Misty be a part of this. It’s totally historic for us. You seize the moment when it comes. This changes how we look at what dancers should be and look like.”

This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the company’s staging of Webre’s own production of “The Nutcracker,” which has featured George Washington in the form of the Nutcracker prince and a setting of Washington in the mid-19th century.

“This year, there will be some surprises and different thing,” he said. “I’ve never gotten tired of doing this. It’s always fresh and challenging. There’ll be some new party guests—ambassadors of the period, Frederick Douglas. There’ll be cherry blossoms, American clowns, alley cats, Native Americans from Anacostia. We’ll have a fresh crop of bumble bees, and we’ll have different casts—the total number of people involved is 500 or more, many coming from our school.”

This season also marks Webre’s 15th as Artistic Director of the Washington Ballet. “I do think we’ve come a long way. We always move ahead, doing new things, but bringing in as much of classical ballet as we can. ‘Swan Lake’ and having Misty Copeland with us for it, will mark a significant step forward.”

Robert Devaney •

The Library of Congress presented Billy Joel with the 2014 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song during a tribute concert at DAR Constitution Hall Nov. 19, after a luncheon on Capitol Hill the day before with the nation’s lawmakers. At the concert, one heard America — and a uniquely Washington crowd — singing his songs, now etched into national memory.

The 65-year-old Joel was seen as a unifying force for Congress with Democrats and Republicans — some of whom were in the audience — singing his praises for a 50-year musical career. Indeed, one observer noted that House minority leader Nancy Pelosi ditched President Barack Obama for the rock-and-roll icon. The White House held a meeting on Obama’s new immigration directive the same night as the Gershwin Prize concert, which Pelosi chose to attend.

After all, it’s not every day that a group of musical talents gathers on stage to sing Billy Joel songs and then have the man himself and his band take control and rock the house with some classics — just three blocks from the White House.

“Billy Joel is a true example of this vision for the library’s Gershwin Prize.” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, who added that Joel is “a storyteller of the highest order.” The award, created by Congress, is named for the songwriting team of George and Ira Gershwin.

At the beginning of the show, Billington sat with Joel and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor — also from New York like the awardee. Later, she presented Joel with the Gershwin Prize and said, “Billy Joel has inspired new generations of performers, musicians and singer-songwriters,” she said. “Tonight we recognize Long Island’s favorite son, even if he is a Mets fan.” Also at the award presentation were Billington, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, Pelosi, Rep. Gregg Harper and Rep. Candice Miller.

“Kind of verklempt,” began Joel as he held the prize in his hand and said that Gershwin was his hero. This year has brought, he said, “a bounty of blessings. I want to ensure everyone I don’t have a terminal illness.”

Performers sang one piece each from the singer-songwriter’s songbook: Boyz II Men, LeAnn Rimes, Gavin DeGraw, Josh Groban, Natalie Maines, John Mellencamp and Tony Bennett, who got the biggest applause of the night before the honoree stepped on stage.

Kevin Spacey offered opening remarks: “I think even a man like Frank Underwood would be pretty excited about a night like tonight.” The actor — who can sing, too — was referring to his character at the Netflix show, “House of Cards.”

Dancers from “Movin’ Out,” choreographed by Twyla Tharp, got the party going with their high energy moves from the Broadway musical that is based on Joel’s music.

It was when Joel and his band owned the stage and the hall with “Movin’ Out,” “Vienna,” “Miami 2017” and “You May Be Right” that it all came together to see who was in charge here and also see Washingtonians singing and bopping to the music.

At the very end, all the performers came on stage as Spacey played the harmonica and sung “Piano Man” with Joel. It was a perfect mix of music and moments for Joel and the kind of evening that only the nation’s capital can give to the American people.

PBS will broadcast the Gershwin Prize Tribute Concert for Billy Joel on Jan. 2.
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Gary Tischler • November 20, 2014

It was an eclectic audience on hand for the official opening night of Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. It cuts across tastes, memories and generations.

There were, for instance, several people who had actually seen the one-of-a-kind Zero Mostel in the original, and there were people there who had never seen it, like the young woman sitting next to me. Somehow, this production, this musical, almost effortlessly managed to reach out and touch not only someone but pretty much everyone.

Smith gave us a “Fiddler,” a Tevye, his daughters, and all the residents of this small Jewish village living a precarious and dangerous life in Czarist Russia that clung cleanly to the original. She left no obvious directorial thumbprints on the production, except for one important one: a clear, tangible faith in the power of the material to move us and the talent of the company to do the same.

Nothing had changed in a show that has been done many times in uncounted places with uncounted actors. Here was a fiddler, this time ensconced in wooden trappings above the station. Here was Tevye, the milkman, his absolute faith in tradition being time and time again tested by his daughters and constant impending disasters at the hands of their Russian overlords. Here were the familiar songs that echoed and fine-tuned the rhythms of life in the village and in Tevye’s family—“Sunrise, Sunset,” “Tradition,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” “To Life” and so on.

One thing was very different—the theater-in-the-round setting of the Fichandler space, which gave an added naturalness and intimacy to the proceedings. And the acting and singing as a whole was better than good, headed by Jonathan Hadary as Tevye.

It’s no small task doing Tevye in front of an audience with such a warehouse of memories of other actors assaying the part—or with no memories at all. Hadary was walking in large footsteps that included Harvey Fierstein, the formidable Theodore Bikel, in town for his 90th Birthday, who had done the role more times than other actor, as well as Hershel Bernardi and Topol.

Hadary is not big of voice, body or even gesture. He lets Tevye be himself without trying to bowl you over with heartiness and earthquake-sized pain and feeling. Like many other Tevyes, he’s not a great singer, but he is a terrifically natural actor—this is a Tevye you can feel for and maybe raise a glass with. He’s stronger than he looks—not only does this Tevye pull his milk cart to spell his ailing horse, he pulls our hearts to him and his friends, family, daughters, their beaus and his wife. It’s a little magical—every scene he’s in with someone else makes them shine.

“Fiddler on the Roof” is another foray by Molly Smith into the annals of the great American musicals, begun in spectacular fashion with “South Pacific,” continued with “Camelot” and “Oklahoma” and more recently with “The Music Man” and “My Fair Lady.”

“Fiddler” has a historic place in that genre, for all the right reasons, but it’s also a musical that is based on Yiddish short stories and chronicles the lives of people who have every reason not to rejoice. They are also the source of the lifeblood of American ideals and dreams—the characters—the survivors—would eventually come to America to invest their culture, music, literature and art into that great American stream of immigrant contribution.

Watching Tevye, as each of his daughters falls in love—without the help of a matchmaker—with a tailor, an intellectual rebel exiled to Siberia, and, the last bitter pill he cannot swallow, a Russian, is to watch a man embracing tradition even as he has to let go of many of the strands from which it’s made. That “Fiddler” is bracing and embracive, that it touches old memories and new experiences, is a kind of theater tradition. Or as Motel the tailor sings, it’s a little bit of a “Miracle of Miracles”.
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