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Wednesday, May 10, 2000
Unprecedented variety marks this year's festival By Patricia Goodson The first Prague Spring International Music Festival rose out of the ashes of World War II. Its founders were determined to celebrate aspects of Europe's heritage that could bring some sense of hope and pride to a ravaged continent. True to this spirit of rebirth, the 55th Prague Spring opens Friday, May 12, with what may be the most eclectic and inspired program in the event's history. This year's festival embraces everything from children's opera to the avant-garde, jazz to ballet. Two new cycles within the series celebrate the links between music and Prague's renowned architecture, and are among the highlights of the festival. In the Genius Loci ("Spirit of the Place") series, concerts are held in venues important to Prague's musical heritage. Most of these locales are seldom, if ever, used for performances today. The Mozarteum, currently home to the Jiri Svestka art gallery on Jungmannova street, was once the premier recital hall in Prague. This charming space will be the setting for an evening of poetry and music on May 20. Genius Loci will also feature the Collegium 1704 performing music written for Charles IV in the former Servite monastery of St. Michael on Melantrich street. In the Zofin palace, formerly the site of the Prager Singakademie (Academy for the Promotion of Singing and Music), mezzo-soprano Olga Stepanova will sing a repertoire by Liszt and Dvorak -- pieces written during the school's heyday and doubtless taught and performed there. Other venues in the series include the Hlahol Choral Society hall and the Bertramka (frequented by both Mozart and Beethoven). The second architecture-related series features 12 concerts in Prague's churches and synagogues. Among the more unusual are an evening of synagogue songs in the recently renovated and stunningly beautiful Spanish Synagogue, and a program of Orthodox liturgical music in the Church of St. Cyril and Methodius. Composers will be honored as well, such as the great Hungarian composer Bela Bartok with a performance of his complete string quartets by Prague's Talich Quartet. The festival will also commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach with four concerts, including two performances of his monumental Mass in B minor in St. Vitus cathedral. Flesh made music This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Zdenek Fibich, a leading Czech composer whose fame was eclipsed by the more powerful musical personalities of his near-contemporaries Dvorak and Janacek. Gifted with a marked dramatic sense, Fibich excelled in melodrama, a form in which music accompanies the dramatic recitation of a text. His masterpiece, the trilogy Death of Hippodamia, will receive a rare revival by the Olomouc Philharmonic. In addition, Slovak pianist Marian Lapsansky will perform selections from Fibich's remarkable musical diary, comprised of hundreds of short piano pieces, many inspired by his love for a young woman. (Indeed, some of the pieces are attempts to describe her body in musical terms.) For the first time ever, the festival will host a children's event -- the premiere of Evzen Zamecnik`s musical Rychle sipy (The Swift Arrows), based on Jaroslav Foglar's popular series of comic strips and books and performed by the Prague Children's Opera. Foglar's adventure tales were suppressed by the Nazis and the communists, but their popularity with young Czech readers has never diminished. Another first is the addition of two concerts outside the normal time frame of the festival. As part of the European City of Culture celebrations, Prague Spring will play host to the acclaimed New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Kurt Masur, on June 24 and 25. This is one of the world's most celebrated orchestras, and not to be missed. Other outstanding events include appearances by the Philadelphia Orchestra (which some would rank above the New York Philharmonic), the Kronos Quartet with Dawn Upshaw, and world premieres of Czech jazz pianist Karel Ruzicka's Magnificat and Israeli composer Isaac Steiner's musical Dorian Gray. With such a range of styles and settings, there is truly something for everyone at this year's festival. TRAVEL
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