Britten's War Requiem at Chicago Symphony Orchestra

A week ago, I had the chance to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with chorus, children's chorus and vocal soloists perform Benjamin Britten's monumental War Requiem at Orchestra Hall.  As someone who has always loved Britten's music, I have never quite taken to this work, although I had never had the opportunity to hear it live before.  As with most works it improves immensely in performance over a recording.

I was struck particularly by the theatricality of the piece.  What in a listen to the recording I merely interpreted as short, fragmented vocal lines became in performance heart-felt, panting pleas for rest, forgiveness, peace.  While still a very thorny piece to embrace, visualizing the soloists in their three political regimes (German, British, Russian) helped populate the music for me.

The CSO vocal soloists were from the cultural backgrounds which Britten intended when he wrote the piece in 1961 -- Russian soprano, British tenor, German Baritone.  There is something about Britten and 3s. (The photo is of a German performance of the piece in the 1960s with Britten conducting as he did at the premier, and original soloists Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Tenor and Britten's partner Peter Pears.)

The piece is structure to build toward the end, but not in the way you anticipate.  Although all the musical forces are being used together for the only time in the piece -- orchestra, chamber orchestra which accompanies the soloists, soloists, children's chorus, and adult chorus -- it ends more with a whimper than a bang, Whimper may be too negative a word, perhaps communal prayer is the feeling the ending is trying to convey.  The finale worked for me.

The soloists I heard sing were spot on and well chosen: Russian soprano Tatiana Pavlovskaya, English tenor John Mark Ainsley and German baritone Matthias Goerne. All brought vitality and pathos to their parts.

Another Ending

I haven't posted anything here in a long time.   But an event happened this summer and concluded last night which I feel compelled to write about -- Bernie Sahlins died on June 17, 2013 and his public memorial was held last night, September 30 at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.

Bernie is the legendary founding producer of The Second City, the one credited with finding the way to monetize sketch comedy, present a consistent product, and franchise it around the world who also directed dozens of shows for the company and helped develop talents that went out to write, perform and direct around the world.  At his memorial lots of Second City people were in attendance and several spoke about Bernie's impact on the industry (well, he kind of created the industry of sketch comedy), and the careers he impacted by allowing performers to work on their craft during the long rehearsal periods for shows at The Second City.

While that work is the most well-known and visible legacy of Bernie's 90 years on this planet, I know Bernie through different channels than The Second City.

I was 22 when I came to Chicago having arranged a job with the International Theatre Festival of Chicago, which was getting ready to produce its second set of performances from foreign theatre companies in a month-long festival.  I had been hired as the assistant to the Director of Development to whom I had been introduced by a professor of mine -- the Director of Development had graduated from our college about 6 years before me.  So in September of 1987 I arrived in the offices of the ITFC.  It quickly became clear that I had landed in Oz.

Like in Oz, there was a beautiful and good witch named Jane, who was the executive director and co-founder of the festival.  Her husband (and I did always think of them in that order) was Bernie Sahlins, also a co-founder and board member of the festival.   He was the elfish wizard in Oz, and I was, if not Dorothy, at least a friend of hers. I was the ultimate philistine for Bernie, a Chicago neophyte and completely ignorant of the city, improv, sketch comedy, The Second City, and of his accomplishments. He soon corrected all those short-comings in me.

Over the course of my 20s, I worked on three International Theatre Festivals, which Jane continued to run and on which Bernie continued to advise. Through them I was introduced to all the cultural elite in town -- not just the well-heeled crowd who attended, but the administrators, critics, artistic directors, and actors in Chicago who were continuing to shape the Chicago theatre scene.  Through the Sahlins I got entrée into shows at The Steppenwolf, Goodman, Lyric Opera, but also smaller off-Loop companies like Victory Gardens, Lookingglass, and Body Politic.

When the Festival closed after its 1994 incarnation, I was well positioned to continue my non-profit management career through the friends and contacts of the Sahlins.  To this day, having the International Theatre Festival of Chicago on my resume garners comment and positive memories.  Even with my current job at a museum, I am convinced I was offered the position at least partly because Bernie Sahlins was a reference of mine and my boss at the museum had taken his kids to many shows at The Second City in the late 70s and early 80s. 

My relationship with the Sahlins continued throughout the 90s and 2000s, as I became the go-to stage manager for what I referred to as Bernie's guerrilla theater productions.  He was writing or adapting readings of plays for one-off performances for groups such as the Chicago Humanities Festival, the University of Chicago, and the Poetry Foundation. from 1995 until April of 2013 (two months before his death) I worked on somewhere around 30 readings that Bernie produced.  I was honored to help him continue his work right up to the end.  His intellectual capacity and curiosity was undimmed even on the few occasions when he was not at his peak physically.

Bernie's belief that all a good production needed was a good actor and good words for him/her to say, led to a stable of Chicago actors whom Bernie would call on again and again over the years to be part of his readings.  The unofficial "Bernie Sahlins Repertory Company" developed and I was happy to be the Boy Friday to its name-sake, continuing to do so even while working full time at other cultural organizations.

With Bernie's death, the production side of my professional career may have ended, or at least been much curtailed.  It was a pretty good run, though, and if it is over I feel like it went out with the best.  Personally, I will miss Bernie and will always picture him beside Jane with an impish smile--delightful enough for you to think he is getting away with something, and generous enough for you to believe you are in on it.