DPO presents a New Year’s Eve musical journey from Paris to Vienna

There once was a long-distance passenger train that ran from Paris to Istanbul, crossing many international borders en route. It was just a train, nothing more. Perhaps the exotic locations it connected lent it an air of mystique. Perhaps it was something much more….

In 1883, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits initiated railway service on a train it named the Orient Express. Its purpose was to carry passengers in relative style and comfort and provide an enjoyable travel experience.

It was, to say the least, an overachiever.

Imagine for a second what a trip from Paris to Vienna must have been like in 1883. In Paris, the City of Light, you would board the train at Gare de Strasbourg station for a 6:30 pm departure, and a mere 28 hours and 50 minutes later you would arrive in Vienna, Austria, the City of Waltzes. And while, admittedly, that is a very long time by today’s travel standards, the employees of Wagons-Lits did everything possible to make your trip optimally enjoyable.

It started with the train itself. In addition to the locomotive and other support cars, the Orient Express consisted of a baggage car, four sleeping coaches with a total of 58 beds, and a restaurant car.

And when Wagons-Lits said restaurant car, they meant restaurant car. A typical menu might include oysters, soup with Italian pasta, turbot with green sauce, chicken à la chasseur, fillet of beef with château potatoes, chaud-froid of game animals, lettuce, chocolate pudding, and a buffet of desserts.
Sort of like C’est Tout or Rue Dumaine, only on wheels.

Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra presents Paris to Vienna: A New Year’s Celebration on Saturday, December 31 at 8pm at the Schuster Center

At first Express d’Orient as the French called it ran only as far as Vienna and back; eventually it expanded its service as far as Istanbul. Regardless of its name and the frontiers it crossed, the Orient Express was as French as French gets. The various stations in the countries along its route lent the train an air of intrigue, and its method of operation and attention to style and personal comfort made it a world standard for luxury travel.
In her novel Murder on the Orient Express, prolific English mystery writer Agatha Christie immortalized the train. And, when he wrote the score for the 1974 film of the same name, Richard Rodney Bennett captured the spirit of the experience of riding the fabled train with a main theme written, fittingly, in the style of a luxurious romantic waltz. The song mimicked the movement of the train itself, starting haltingly (short wheel spins), slowly building tempo (gaining steam), and finally waltzing with abandon (running at top speed).

In 2009, the Orient Express ceased operation, shot in the operational heart by a bullet train, the 186-mile-per-hour TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse), and bombed out of the market by cut-rate airlines.

But its musical spirit lives on.

This New Year’s Eve, Saturday, December 31 at 8pm in the ­Schuster Center, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra presents Paris to Vienna: A New Year’s Celebration. It can be your ticket to a musical ride on the Orient Express.

Your journey starts in Paris, where the music of Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jacques Offenbach, Emmanuel Chabrier, and Maurice Ravel gets your evening off and running at full speed.

Your musical train stops only once en route. And not for water. New Year’s Eve Intermission at the DPO features complimentary champagne!

Back on board, the musical program of light classics, opera arias, and festive favorites continues. Vienna is just around the next bend; the music of Johann Strauss, Jr., the Waltz King – overtures, marches, polkas, and (of course) waltzes – completes the journey.

And a balloon drop in the Mead Theater celebrates your arrival.

Bonne Année! A guads Neichs Johr olle mitanand!

Happy New Year!

TICKET CONTEST

We’ve partnered with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra to give away TWO PAIRS of tickets to Paris to Vienna: A New Year’s Celebration!  Simply fill out the form below for a chance to win – we’ll draw winners on Friday, December 9 at 2pm.  Check back here or on our Facebook page to find out if you are a winner… GOOD LUCK!

(Contest Closed)

Congratulations to our two random winners:

Vince Bryant

Julie Westwood

Happy New Year!

(Read our On Stage Dayton review of Les Misérables by Russell Florence, Jr.)

Victoria Theatre Association announces the cast for Cameron Mackintosh’s new 25^th anniversary production of Les Misérables premiere Dayton engagement at the Benjamin & Marian Schuster  Performing Arts Center, November 22-27, 2011. The all new production of Les Misérables features glorious new staging and spectacular reimagined scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo.  To purchase tickets, visit www.ticketcenterstage.com, call 937-228-3630, or visit Ticket Center Stage Box Office, located in the Wintergarden of the Schuster Center. Ticket prices start at $40.00.  For more information on the production, engagement dates, and locations please visit www.LesMis.com. For a video sneak peek of the New 25^th Anniversary Production of Les Misérables, please visit www.LesMis.com/watch.

J. Mark McVey portrays the fugitive Jean Valjean.  He is joined by Andrew Varela as Javert, Richard Vida as Thénardier, Shawna M. Hamic as Madame Thénardier, Betsy Morgan as Fantine, Jeremy Hays as Enjolras, Chasten Harmon as Éponine, Max Quinlan as Marius and Jenny Latimer as Cosette.  Maya Jade Frank and Juliana Simone alternate in the role of Little Cosette/Young Éponine.  Anthony Pierini and Sam Poon alternate in the role of Gavroche.

The New York Times calls Les Misérables “an unquestionably spectacular production from start to finish.” The London Times hails the new show “a five star hit, astonishingly powerful and as good as the original.”  The Star-Ledger says “a dynamically re-imagined hit.  This Les Misérables has improved with age” and NY1-TV proclaims “this new production actually exceeds the original. The storytelling is clearer, the perspective grittier and the motivations more honest. Musical theatre fans can rejoice: Les Miz is born again.”

“I’m delighted that 25 years after Les Miz originally opened in London the audience for this marvelous show is bigger and younger than ever before,” said producer Cameron Mackintosh. “Over the years I have seen many successful but visually different productions, so it has been exciting to draw inspiration from the brilliant drawings and paintings of Victor Hugo himself, integrated with spectacular projections.  The new Les Miz is a magnificent mix of dazzling images and epic staging, driving one of the greatest musical stories ever told.”

Based on Victor Hugo’s classic novel, Les Misérables is an epic and uplifting story about the survival of the human spirit.  The magnificent score of Les Misérables includes the classic songs “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” “Stars,” “Bring Him Home,” “Do You Hear the People Sing?,” “One Day More,” “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” “Master Of The House” and many more.

Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Boublil and Schönberg’s Les Misérables has music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer from the original French text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, additional material by James Fenton and original adaptation by Trevor Nunn and John Caird. The original Les Misérables orchestrations are by John Cameron with new orchestrations by Christopher Jahnke and additional orchestrations by Stephen Metcalfe and Stephen Brooker.  The production is directed by Laurence Connor and James Powell, designed by Matt Kinley inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo with costumes by Andreane Neofitou and additional costumes by Christine Rowlands, lighting by Paule Constable, sound by Mick Potter, musical staging by Michael Ashcroft and projections by Fifty-Nine Productions.

Les Misérables originally opened in London at the Barbican Theatre on October 8, 1985, transferred to the Palace Theatre on December 4, 1985 and moved to its current home at the Queen’s Theatre on April 3, 2004 where it continues to play to packed houses. When Les Misérables celebrated its 21^st London birthday on October 8, 2006, it became the World’s Longest-Running Musical, surpassing the record previously held by Cats in London’s West End.

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In celebration of its 25^th anniversary, the legendary musical Les Misérables made theatrical history with an international first – three different productions in London at the same time. The Original Production (still playing to packed houses at the Queen’s Theatre), the acclaimed New 25^th Anniversary Production at the Barbican (where the show originally premiered) and a celebratory concert at The O2 Arena.  The O2 Concert was presented in over 500 cinemas throughout the United States on November 17, 2010 and is now available on Blu-ray DVD through Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

The Broadway production of Les Misérables originally opened at the Broadway Theatre on March 12, 1987 and transferred to the Imperial Theatre on October 17, 1990 running for 6,680 performances.  The US National Tour began in November 1987 and visited over 150 cities before closing in St. Louis, MO in 2006.  Broadway audiences welcomed Les Miz back to New York on November 9, 2006 where the show played the Broadhurst Theatre until its final performance on January 6, 2008. To date, Les Misérables remains the 3^rd longest-running Broadway production of all time.

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Seen by nearly 60 million people worldwide in 42 countries and in 21 languages, Les Misérables is undisputedly one of the world’s most popular musicals ever written, with new productions continually opening around the globe, with seven more currently scheduled. There have been 36 cast recordings of Les Misérables, including the multi-platinum London cast recording, the Grammy Award-winning Broadway cast and complete symphonic albums and the soon to be released live recording of the New 25^th Anniversary Production. The video of the 10^th Anniversary Royal Albert Hall Gala Concert has sold millions of copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling musical videos ever in the UK. There are over 2,500 productions of the Les Misérables School’s Edition scheduled or being performed by over 125,000 school children in the UK, US and Australia, making it the most successful musical ever produced in schools. Cameron Mackintosh is currently developing a film of Les Misérables with Working Title and Universal.

Les Misérables is welcomed by Victoria Theatre Association, with the help of Leadership Sponsors WHIO-TV and the WinWholesale and The Win Group of Companies; and, Performance Sponsors WHIO AM/FM and K 99.1.

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TICKET CONTEST

We have a pair of tickets to see Les Misérables on November 23, courtesy of Victoria Theatre Association!  Just fill out the form below and you’ll be entered to win in our drawing on Friday November 18th.  Check back here on the 18th to see if you’ve won – GOOD LUCK!

Contest Closed

Congratulations to Amanda Barhorst, she is our winner!

DPO presents a musical metaphor for our technology-dependent world

When I was a kid, it wasn’t all that unusual for one kid to call down his or her wrath on another. If you were really P-O’d at Bobby or Suzy, you might say something like, “I hope you fall down a deep well full of spiders that crawl in your ears and up your nose and suck your brains right out of your skull.”

Talk about spite.

And before you think such curses are child’s play, consider this: folklore is crammed with stories of people who actually did things as bad as that…and worse. For example….

In Greek mythology, there was a god named Prometheus, who committed an unpardonable crime – he brought fire to the world. For his crime, he was bound to a rock, where a giant bird picked away at his vitals in perpetuity. (They were eternally renewed and eternally destroyed each day.) Yeeeech!

After all, what was there for the gods to be so upset about? It was fire, for Pete’s sake. It heats homes, cooks food, melts metal. All good things. But obviously the gods had a different take on it.

And a brilliant American musical composer had a different take on it as well. He saw fire as representing technology, technology that has expanded for the last 500 years and drastically changed our society. Need an example?

Not quite 50 years ago, most businesses hired top- and middle-management personnel (mostly men) and supplied each with a secretary (mostly women), who performed all the clerical duties for the manager. Then technology, in the form of room-sized computers with all their support machinery (keypunch machines, optical character readers) changed the nature of the secretaries’ clerical duties to mostly those of a data entry clerk.

Not long after, managers found computer terminals on their desks replete with word processing and spreadsheet software. And looked up to see their secretaries were no longer there. An entire segment of the country’s workforce had disappeared; the company retained one secretary in each department, gave her the title of Administrative Assistant, and tasked her with hassling the various managers’ travel itineraries. In a short while, even she would disappear.

And the managers, both male and female now and armed with the new technology, became quasi-secretaries. As time passed and computer technology became infinitely smaller and more powerful it became all too prevalent for companies to dismiss large portions of their managerial staff and double the workload of those remaining. Why? To save money and increase profits.

And because they could.

Their managerial staff each had computers of their own so small that, if the managers couldn’t get all their work done in the 60-80 hours they spent in the office each week, they could simply take their computers (and their smart phones and tablets) home with them and do their work there. On their “free” time.

The American composer to whom I referred earlier is William Bolcom, a professor of composition at the University of Michigan. And his musical portrayal of the story of Prometheus follows in the footsteps of such other brilliant composers as Ludwig von Beethoven and Franz Liszt. But with a decidedly 21-st Century twist.

“We in the West have brought ourselves to a level of technical sophistication unknown to any other era,” Bolcom wrote in 2010. “We’ve wedged our way into almost-divine capability, unlike Prometheus who as a god was born with it – but at a price. We are now all Prometheus, chained to our rock of technological dependency; there is no question that our unprecedented advance has given the world enormous benefits we have no desire of relinquishing – nor should we – but we are enjoined to see the dark side of this bounty.”

And Bolcom’s Prometheus is a dark, and challenging, work.

Its musical materials are twisted, dissonant, uneven. The pianist represents Prometheus, and the chorus sings the text of Lord Byron’s poem of the same name. The orchestra is frenzied and explosive. The music gradually becomes more poetic, a salute to the spirit of mankind. Colorful. Peaceful.

Hopeful.

Promethean Exploits
11/18 & 11/19 at 8 pm
Schuster Center
Click For Tickets

On Friday and Saturday, November 18 and 19 at 8pm in the Schuster Center, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra presents Promethean Exploits, a program that features Beethoven’s Prometheus Overture, Bolcom’s Prometheus, Liszt’s Prometheus Symphonic Poem, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8. Guest pianist Jeffrey Biegel and the 120-plus members of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra Chorus, selected from singers from all over the Miami Valley, join Music Director Neal Gittleman and the DPO.

“When I was requested to write the present work for the same forces as Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy,” Bolcom writes, “I felt the piano part would be ideal in portraying Prometheus’ eternal agony; my Prometheus is perhaps the antithesis of the joyous mood of the Beethoven but is not devoid of hope, particularly if it points us to begin to understand our situation. This piece is dedicated to that hope.”

DPO presents Three Dog Night in season kick-off of Rockin’ Orchestra Series

Exactly how does someone go about starting a rock band?

The most common approach involves amateurs with a burning desire to get into the music business, who meet at someone’s garage or rec room, set up their equipment, and begin by practicing cover songs, popular hits that most know by ear and for which few ever see any written music. Somewhere in the process, one or more of these aspiring rock stars will compose a song or two, and the group will practice performing its new, original music.

I don’t have access to the actual statistics, but I’m willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of these ventures end in years of mutually fond memories and little else. The music business is a hard taskmaster (this said from the perspective of personal experience).

Does it help if those involved in the startup of a rock band have some actual music industry experience? Definitely. A caveat here: there’s music industry experience, and then there’s music industry experience. Here’s a case in point….

It was the ‘60s. A young vocalist named Cory Wells was touring with Sonny and Cher, (music industry experience) when he met Danny Hutton, who had been loading and unloading records at the Disney studio (music industry experience, sort of…) before recording as a solo artist (music industry experience). See my point?

In 1968, they decide to pool their money and their talent and start a rock band of their own. But what to call the group? Hutton and Wells? Wells and Hutton? In the ‘60s, the conventional naming technique of referring to a group’s principal talent in its name had all but disappeared. While such groups as Loggins and Messina; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young still followed the convention, the practice began to revert to one of picking highly unusual and often extremely esoteric names for rock bands, e.g., Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, Crystal Harp, Steely Dan.

Not to be outdone, Hutton and Wells came up with a name that – while suitably cryptic to comply with the governing fashion – actually had a basis in conventional usage. Well, sort of…. It’s reputed that, on cold nights, Australian aborigines in the outback sleep with their dogs for warmth. The coldest evenings are known as three-dog nights….

Armed with a name that could stand toe-to-toe with the most enigmatic of band names, Three Dog Night went about ensuring that its name would not only be suitably mysterious, but it would also become a hallmark in the world of rock music for outstanding harmonies and arrangements. Virtually unknown itself, Three Dog Night threw in its lot with new and mostly undiscovered songwriters, recording music to the words and melodies of Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Elton John, Laura Nyro, Paul Williams, and Hoyt Axton.

And, man, did the evenings ever get warm.

Not to date myself, but I can remember water skiing at Lake Cumberland and Lake Herrington during summer days and joining my Ski Club buddies at night in our campground or in the lodge to enjoy a variety of refreshing liquid beverages and dance to the music of Three Dog Night. I found it amazing how upwards of sixty men and women could dance and – at one and the exact same time, with little or no direction – sing Jeremiah was a bullfrog; he was a good friend of mine completely in tune! Hey, this is my flashback; I can remember it the way I want, right?

Three Dog Night: Live with Orchestra at The Schuster Performing Arts Center
Saturday 11/12/2011 8pm
Click For Tickets

Joy to the World wasn’t the only one of Three Dog Night’s hits we and the rest of the world danced and sang to. After all, the group has had twenty-one consecutive Top 40 hits and twelve straight gold LPs, selling nearly 50 million records by the mid-‘70s. And the group continues to top the list of artists with the best Billboard Top 100 Chart average.

Still as good as ever, the 2011 version of Three Dog Night appears to be tireless. Beside founding members Cory Wells and Danny Hutton on lead vocals and original keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon, the group now includes guitarist Michael Allsup, with Paul Kingery on bass and vocals and Pat Bautz on drums.

Their concert schedule is, to say the very least, formidable. In the last 25 years, the group has performed over 2,000 shows, including two Super Bowls. They were so busy, in fact, that it wasn’t until 2009 that the group released its first single in all that time, Heart Of Blues backed by the ballad Prayer of the Children. Face it; you rest, you rust.

43 years after it started, Three Dog Night looks back on a career that resulted in a body of work with 21 songs that became Top 40 hits. Reading the names of some of those titles, I can hear the music in my head: Mama Told Me, Joy to The World, Black And White, Shambala, Easy To Be Hard, An Old Fashioned Love Song, One, Eli’s Coming, and Celebrate.

If you want to hear them again, go to the Schuster Center on Saturday, Nov­ember 12 at 8 pm for Three Dog Night: Live with Orchestra. Experience Three Dog Night, backed by Music Director Neal Gittleman and the DPO. It might be cold outside, but don’t worry.

They’ve got the dogs to keep you warm.