Entertainment

12:06 PM CST on Wednesday, December 28, 2005

By SCOTT CANTRELL / The Dallas Morning News

Symphony orchestras set the tone for a city's classical music scene. They have the biggest budgets and put on the most concerts. Their musicians teach in area colleges.

So it's a big deal when there's a change of music director. As 2005 fades into 2006, that's in the works for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, with Andrew Litton due to vacate the podium after this season.

Who will be his successor?

The DSO isn't saying who is and isn't a candidate. The search committee is as secretive as Osama bin Laden. But clearly most, if not all, guest conductors these days are being auditioned, at least unofficially, for music-director potential.

Philippe Jordan, a Swiss-born 31-year-old with movie-star good looks, made his Dallas debut with richly expressive performances of Brahms and Strauss. He's had more operatic than symphonic experience, but he's clearly a major up-and-comer. And having his mug on billboards wouldn't hurt ticket sales.

Claus Peter Flor, the DSO's principal guest conductor since 1999, keeps molding one stunning performance after another, and his outgoing personality could be a real plus in the community. But some musicians complain that he's too temperamental and sometimes hard to follow.

Yan Pascal Tortelier got finely finished playing from the orchestra, in spite of a strange baton technique. Carlos Kalmar and Pinchas Steinberg were supremely competent and pretty uninspiring. Marin Alsop delivered a Brahms Fourth Symphony dead on arrival, but she went on to get hired by the Baltimore Symphony (over public objections from the musicians).

The new year promises DSO debuts for Andrey Boreyko and Jaap van Zweden; Mr. Boreyko, in particular, has been getting glowing reviews. And Andrew Davis, who led marvelous DSO performances back in 2003, is returning.

Don't be surprised if the search lasts through the 2006-07 season. Given conductors' advance bookings, it's not unusual for an orchestra to go one or two seasons between music directors. But this is too important a decision to be rushed.

Don't count out the classical musical world

If there was a symbol for the classical music world in 2005, it was the empty seat.

There were legions of them, from the Metropolitan Opera to the Fort Worth Symphony. Doomsayers decried a graying audience, budget deficits and the demise of arts education in schools as evidence of the terminal decline of Western civilization.

But, hey, attendance at movies and rock concerts dropped, too. GM and the airlines are in trouble. It's a tough world out there, bloody in tooth and claw.

Leisure options proliferate by the week. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra competes with a gazillion satellite channels on that huge HDTV, not to mention the DVDs from Netflix or downloads for the iPod.

But there are hopeful signs, too. The DSO's search for a music director has turned up some exciting conductors. Excavation begins early in the new year for the long-needed Winspear Opera House. Miguel Harth-Bedoya has the FWSO playing on a level unimaginable five years ago.

And for the record, symphony audiences' average age hasn't shifted much in decades.

Don't sign that death warrant yet.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Claus Peter Flor

March 16

Now in his sixth season as the DSO's principal guest conductor, Mr. Flor keeps shaping one stunning performance after another. "Flor is a force of nature," says Roy Cherryhomes, one of the DSO's recording engineers, "fire, storms, water, wind." His Bruckner Ninth Symphony was a masterpiece of visceral energy and elegant expressivity.

The Meadows Symphony Orchestra

April 21

Southern Methodist University's superb student orchestra has a deeply musical conductor in Paul Phillips – and some fine teachers behind the scenes. The orchestra's performance of Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra had it all: mystery and playfulness, tenderness and terror and giddy exuberance.

Adkins String Ensemble

Feb. 18

These six Denton-bred siblings, now scattered among several symphony orchestras, play with a polished unanimity that can only come from shared DNA. Their concerts in the acoustically sumptuous Mesquite Arts Center are some of the area's chamber-music highlights. A program including a Piano Quintet by Frank Bridge and works by Britten, Mozart and Hummel was particularly outstanding.

Orpheus Chamber Singers

Oct. 1

It's hard to imagine a Top 10 list without Dallas' world-class chamber choir, led by Donald Krehbiel; the problem is picking just one concert. But a program of music by and about women, sung with suppleness and finesse, stands out in memory.

Walden Piano Quartet

Feb. 13

Three DSO string players and pianist Jo Boatright team up for imaginative combinations of music and eloquent performances. Among the year's prizes was a deeply felt Piano Quartet by the late Englishman Herbert Howells, sharing a program with works by Mozart and Rebecca Clarke.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Philippe Jordan

Nov.

Movie-star handsome, this 31-year-old Swiss conductor propelled himself into the frontrunners for the DSO's music director job. His Brahms Second Symphony was beautifully proportioned and lovingly shaped, and he brought a real personality to Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks and Four Last Songs (passionately sung by Helen Donath).

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, Miguel Harth-Bedoya

Feb. 4

Mr. Harth-Bedoya has the FWSO playing on a level unimaginable when he arrived five years ago. And, although this year's lineup is noticeably more conservative, he's been doing some imaginative programs. A "south of the border" program included hauntingly beautiful Osvaldo Golijov songs and selections from Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne (all gorgeously sung by Dawn Upshaw), plus snazzy orchestral pieces by Alberto Ginastera and Darius Milhaud.

The Dallas Opera: "Tales of Hoffmann"

Dec. 10

Even by operatic standards, it's a crazy story. But Offenbach's music is fun, and music director Graeme Jenkins patched together a taut, sensible version. Marcus Haddock hadn't the elegance one wants for Hoffmann, and Dean Peterson's bass-baritone waned audibly from one villain to the next. But Mary Dunleavy sang up a storm as the four inamoratas.

Orchestra of New Spain

April 19

This Dallas-based orchestra and chorus don't always perform on the highest level, but director Grover Wilkins keeps unearthing remarkable Spanish music straddling the baroque and classical periods. Their account of the Mass Exultabunt sancti in Gloria by Francisco Courcelle revealed a long-lost masterpiece.

Cliburn losers

May 20-June 5

The judges' picks in the first two rounds of the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition were even more inscrutable than usual. The most memorable performances came from pianists who didn't even make it into the final round: Stephen Beus, Jie Chen, Ying Feng, Mariya Kim, Gabriela Martinez and Alexandre Moutouzkine.

Beethoven

String Quartets, Op. 18 (Vanguard Classics)

The Miró Quartet supplies youthful eagerness, lithe elegance and lovingly turned phrases.

Wagner

Parsifal (Opus Arte DVDs)

Nikolaus Lehnhoff's grim staging doesn't help, but these days you'd be hard-pressed to beat a cast of Christopher Ventris (Parsifal), Matti Salminen (Gurnemanz) and Waltraud Meier (Kundry), and Kent Nagano conducts eloquently. Stunning high-definition video and audio.

Saariaho

L'Amour de loin (Deutsche Grammophon DVD)

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's haunting tale of long-distance love is lovingly realized by Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw, Monica Groop and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Schwantner

Works for solo instruments and orchestra (Hyperion)

American composer Joseph Schwantner's dramatic, multicolored works for organ, horn, violin and orchestra are persuasively served up by Andrew Litton, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and soloists James Diaz, Gregory Hustis and Anne Akiko Meyers.

Mozart

Violin Sonatas (Philips)

Mark Steinberg and Mitsuko Uchida give performances suffused with life: elegance, as well as excitement; whimsy, as well as poignancy.

Bolcom

Songs of Innocence and Experience (Naxos)

William Bolcom's huge setting of William Blake's most famous poems is a contemporary American masterpiece, juxtaposing styles maniacally but never losing its integrity or individuality. Fun on a first listening, but permanently satisfying.

Vivaldi

Orlando furioso (Naïve)

Vivaldi's operas are coming into their own after nearly 300 years, and this one gets what may be the best recording ever of a baroque opera. Great singers, great music.

Bach

Violin Sonatas and Partitas

Two great performances, as different from each other as night and day, emerged simultaneously. Gidon Kremer (ECM New Series) makes them craggy and quirky; young Julia Fischer (PentaTone) makes them strong and silken.

Monteverdi

L'Incoronazione di Poppea (EuroArts DVD)

Christophe Rousset conducts a 1994 Amsterdam production of Monteverdi's mordant, insightful masterpiece of love and intrigue. Fantastic singers, all theatrically convincing.

Mahler

Symphony No. 2 (Deutsche Grammophon)

Claudio Abbado conducts an orchestra made up of stars and youngsters in the most spiritually illuminating Resurrection Symphony ever. A scintillating Debussy La mer makes a delectable bonus.

E-mail scantrell@dallasnews.com

Getting to the pointe

At least one dance company went into hibernation this year, but the rest are holding firm. Signs that hope springs eternal showed up with a new company, phoenixdancetheatre, and a new and successful Fort Worth Dance Festival.

TITAS continues to supply daring modern dance, as well as plenty of glamour, in its annual Command Performance of International Ballet, while Texas Ballet Theater plays it safe with bold but surefire full-length ballets.

For sheer consistency, Bruce Wood Dance Company holds the gold cup, although with rivals in TITAS, Texas Ballet Theater and Metropolitan Classical Ballet. Any day now Dallas Black Dance Theatre will take off, buoyed by a splendid group of dancers and a mission.

Margaret Putnam

Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal

March 18 at McFarlin Auditorium

Was it the casual chatting and wandering dancers warming up, or the rubber chickens that make this TITAS production so engaging? Hip and hot, the company invented new ways to broaden the horizons of dance with a memorable The Stolen Show that celebrated kitsch while flirting with glitz.

Bruce Wood Dance Company

Oct. 10 at Bass Performance Hall

The master of understatement, choreographer Bruce Wood intertwined classical guitar music, the poetry of Pablo Neruda and dance with a brooding delicacy in Fables of Loneliness. At every moment, the whole threatened to evaporate into a mist, with spellbinding results.

New York Baroque Dance Company

Oct. 9 at the Majestic Theatre

Once a year, New York Baroque and the Dallas Bach Society whisk us back to an era of boned bodices, lace-edged cravats and nimble feet – and such an air of sweet joy that you think the rarefied 17th-century world of the French aristocracy is worth reviving.

Texas Ballet Theater, "Romeo and Juliet"

Oct. 21 at Bass Performance Hall

The sure touch of Ben Stevenson worked wonders again for Shakespeare's romantic tragedy, aided by a superb cast (newlyweds Julie Gumbinner and Lucas Priolo as the title characters, and a spitfire André Silva as Mercutio), along with Tony Tucci's artful lighting, David Walker's handsome sets and Prokofiev's stirring music.

Metropolitan Classical Ballet, "Spring Celebration"

April 19 at Bass Performance Hall

The Russian heritage of the company showed to brilliant advantage in Marius Petipa's rarely seen Raymonda, Act 11 and Grand Pas Classique. A diamond-crisp Olga Pavlova and an impetuous Saracen knight (Alexander Vetrov), along with swords, candelabras and Moorish dancers, set aside any quibbles about a tortuous plot.

Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth, "Dance Exchange, A Choreographers' Showcase"

July 8 at the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth

Vast space and rippling water gardens at the Modern proved an ideal setting, whether for Lori Sundeen Soderbergh's Zen-inspired A Time to Dance, or Michelle Sherrill's sensual Paloma. As the late afternoon sun turned to twilight, so did the mood, ranging from Holly Williams' happy '67 to Kerry Kreiman's dreamy Asleep in our Hearts, Emptied to Live.

Ballet Hispanico

Sept. 22 at the Latino Cultural Center

Betrayal and hope sprung up in a sultry nightclub, full of flash and bouncy rhythms in Dejame Sonar, while sheer resilience made Bury Me Standing arresting. In a makeshift gypsy camp, dancers crawled, paused, pushed and spewed gibberish, comrades to the end.

Fort Worth Dance Festival, "Up and Running"

Oct. 14 at Fort Worth Community Arts Center

A reckless Lucas Priolo heated up the action considerably in David Dustin's Just a Regular Joe, flummoxed at every turn by a glacial-eyed Michele Gifford. That standout performance contrasted nicely with the pure physical purpose of Kijaunta Lucas' ever-shifting Imbalanced, Tiffanee Arnold's cool Momentum and Elizabeth Gillaspy's bittersweet Head On.

Major set Kathakali, "Daksha Yagam"

April 30 at FunAsia, Richardson

The most exotic troupe to come our way for years, this all-male Indian ensemble offered none of the speed and daring associated with Western dance, opting instead for pure theatricality expressed by facial and hand gestures of extraordinary nuance, while the body was weighed down in elaborate costume, enormous head dresses and layers of jewelry.

Ballet Ensemble of Texas

April 2 at Carpenter Hall, Irving

They may have been all of 14 and 15 years old, but the students of Ballet Ensemble of Texas and guest Chamberlain Ballet offered dance of fresh and exquisite clarity in works that ranged from the elegiac Veni Emmanuel to the hilarious Dance Sport.