Maestro plans multimedia music event

Bergman does Beethoven

By Jill Timmons

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Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphonies, string quartets, piano works, concerti and a host of other groundbreaking works are the staples of any concert season.

The Portland Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of American-Israeli conductor Maestro Yaacov Bergman, in their season finale, “Beethoven Underground,” on Saturday, May 24, will bring to local audiences a rare program featuring one of Beethoven’s lesser-known works, “Creatures of Prometheus.”

This captivating work is not often performed and what most audiences know is simply the overture to this two-act ballet.

As the finale to their season, the Portland Chamber Orchestra has chosen to stage an innovative multi-media version of the complete ballet.

The performance will include an original narration by Seattle author/storyteller David Robinson with digital projections of oil paintings by New York visual artist Liz Gill Neilson; all of which is inspired by an outline left by Beethoven for the ballet.

Most experts identify Beethoven’s music as a bridge between the formal prescriptions of classicism and the programmatic content-driven ethos of romanticism. From Beethoven’s early works one can see the influences of his teachers Haydn, Albrechtsberger, and Salieri, to name a few.

With his late works, however, Beethoven takes us into an increasingly rarified atmosphere of spiritual transcendence, virtuosity and a dramatic breakdown of classical forms. In short, Beethoven the iconoclast ushers in the age of romanticism.

The “Creatures of Prometheus,” while being an earlier classical work, draws on the popular heroic Greek myth of Prometheus: bringer of fire.

Neapolitan choreographer Salvatore Vigano chose this serious theme for his ballet and approached Beethoven to write corresponding music. At the time, ballet was not an art form independent of opera and with this work Beethoven joins Vigano in creating something of an innovation.

Unlike his predecessors, Beethoven was not confined to the role of purveyor of music for the court. Throughout his career he defined the role of artist as hero and set the stage for composers who followed throughout the nineteenth century. The political and artistic themes of freedom, justice and heroism are first seen in the “Creatures of Prometheus” and become stalwart elements in subsequent works by Beethoven, such as his opera “Fidelio” and the “Eroica Symphony.”

The “Creatures of Prometheus” was originally staged as a two-act ballet for Empress Marie Therese at the Vienna Court Theatre in 1801 and draws upon the power of myth to connect the heavens with the mortal world. Casting images of pre-industrial nature, Beethoven in his dazzling score calls forth the sights and sounds of the natural world, evoking Prometheus’s gift of fire to humankind. As Prometheus stole fire from Zeus, he graced humankind with the development of culture, art and literacy.

As part of the concert programming, oil paintings by Robinson, as well as Neilson, also will be shown at the Broderick Gallery, 814 SW First Avenue, during the month of May and on Thursday, May 22 from 7-9 p.m. Maestro Bergman will join Keith Scales, artistic director of the Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon, to discuss Beethoven’s music and the Prometheus myth. Artists Neilson and Robinson will join in a discussion of their work.

Maestro Yaacov Bergman, conductor and music director of the PCO, comes to Portland via an international career. He was born in Israel and spent his youth living in a kibbutz. According to Bergman, it was there that he had his first formative musical experiences and training.

Within the Kibbutz he also experienced a dynamic interdisciplinary approach to music performance, one in which theater, choreography and the visual arts were melded together. Bergman sees the mission of the PCO to “provide audiences with programs that are a fusion of the arts.” While continuing to program important standard orchestral works, Bergman also has developed collaborative relationships with storytellers, composers, writers and visual artists. This approach, according to Bergman, “addresses the values of younger audiences and immediately enhances the live performance.”

In the “Creatures of Prometheus,” Bergman and the PCO present this fusion of the arts and continue to help blaze the trail for future innovative programming in the greater Portland area.

Bergman’s career has taken him to the four corners of the world with numerous premieres and guest conducting appearances. In 1995 and 1996, Bergman conducted a series of successful concerts in Cairo, Egypt, becoming the first American-Israeli conductor to appear in an Arab republic.

For local and regional audiences, the Portland Chamber Orchestra’s season finale is a rare performance opportunity and one not to be missed!

A pre-concert lecture is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. with Bergman, Neilson, Robinson, and Scales. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 24 in the Kaul Auditorium at Reed College located at 3203 S.E. Woodstock Blvd. Parking and handicap accessibility is at Southeast 28th Avenue and Botsford Drive. For children and their families, a free dress rehearsal is scheduled for 10 a.m. on the same day.

Tickets for the concert are on sale now for $25. For students, seniors and Portland Chamber Orchestra Association members, tickets are $20. To purchase tickets, call 503-771-3250 or order on line at www.portlandchamberorchestra.org.

Jill Timmons is artist-in-residence at Linfield College. She performs internationally as a piano soloist and ensemble artist and has been the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her recording of works by Amy Beach (Centaur Records) with violinist Laura Klugherz was featured in Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, “The War.” She is currently at work with her husband Sylvain Frémaux on an English translation of French author Joseph Lewinski’s four-volume biography of Swiss-American-Jewish composer Ernest Bloch who lived in Oregon.