Last night in the will call line at Ordway Center I was surrounded by giggling teenage girls (some accompanied by their tittering mothers). The audience for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's concert with Joshua Bell seemed to skew more adolescent female than usual.

The concert began with Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 in D, K504, called the “Prague Symphony" after the city where Mozart amounted to a superstar (likely with his own giggling gaggle of adoring fans) late in his career. Bell led the orchestra from the concertmaster’s chair, a collegial approach that inspired some very fine playing from all sections. It set the stage for the kind of playing heard throughout the concert from the orchestra—mindful phrasing, well-matched articulations, and an intellectual exactitude. It was fun to watch Bell play sitting down—it looked hard for him, maybe a little restrictive. All his energy seemed to want to rise.

He was on his feet for the Bruch Concerto No. 1 in G Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 26, the real treat of the night. Here also, in addition to soloing, Bell conducted the SPCO, leading sections with general whole-body gestures and cueing individuals with eyes, breath, and bow.

Joshua Bell live is an amazing, multisensory pleasure. You can listen with your eyes closed (ask anyone who owns one of his thirty-one albums), but watching him is a pure privilege. You can see the beauty of the music all over his face—its romance and its anguish. You can feel and taste the warmth and sweetness of his instrument (the 1713 “Gibson ex Huberman” Stradivarius). Oh, and what you hear! The long, legato lines of the Adagio movement seemed to stretch on forever, and the audience held its breath. 

This is what is so spectacular about his playing—it goes beyond complete commitment to the music and into a different universe of utter absorption, and it is impossible not to be seduced. (If any of the teenagers in the audience are starting a fan club, count me in.)

Bell recently won the first Avery Fisher award bestowed in three years, and the largest purse in the history of the prize. But he has probably gotten more press lately for the Washington Post experiment in which he played his Stradivarius in a Washington D.C. subway station to a largely oblivious parade of distracted commuters. (He made $32.17.)

It seems utterly impossible that Bell wouldn’t have stopped me in my tracks at that subway station. But transfer the experiment to a freeway exit in Minneapolis—would I stop if the beggars were holding a Strad instead of a cardboard sign?

The experiment showed just how distracted we are in our busy lives that we can pass by without noticing great beauty, and make perceptual assumptions based on context. But last night’s concert context reminded me of the soul-satisfying value of stopping and listening.

I had never been to one of SPCO’s “Jazzed Up Fridays” concerts, but it’s an interesting concept; after intermission, concertgoers are given a choice to listen to jazz in the Marzitelli Foyer or return to the concert hall for the rest of the classical program.

Last night’s live jazz was supplied by Chris Brown and Friends. But I opted to return to the classical realm, where Steven Copes, Sabina Thatcher, and Ronald Thomas played Beethoven’s Trio in C Minor for Violin, Viola and Cello, Opus 9, No. 3. They showed tight ensemble, good communication, and blazing technicality. But I wish I had heard it before the first half, not after. It’s hard to come down from a large-scale work to a chamber work, and even harder to come down from Bell to anything else—it’s just an unfair position to put the trio. For me, the Bruch was so unbelievably great that nothing else should have followed.

This weekend’s concerts are the last for Bell in his role as Artistic Partner of the SPCO, but the SPCO assures that he will return in future seasons as a guest artist.

Sometimes the playwright, director, designers, and cast of a new play get it exactly right. From the preshow music to final moment, you have something akin to a spiritual experience. You share a journey filled with laughter, tears, and hope in a dark theater full of people you don’t know. Along the way, you all become a little more human.

Boats on a River, written by Julie Marie Myatt and directed by Michael Bigelow Dixon, is about sex trafficking in Southeast Asia. Myatt could have gone the easy route and preached. What she has done instead is offered a nuanced glimpse into the personal and political lives of people affected by trafficking. The results are impressive.

The play begins with a close-up of the handsome face of Ted Thompson, filming himself talking about his upcoming trip to Phnom Penh. He’s never left the U.S. before, he’s not sure why he picked Cambodia, and he’s taking his camcorder with him to document the strange land. He’s ready to see the sights, meet the natives, and in general, treat Cambodia like a theme park. Considering that Americans comprise an estimated 25 percent of all sex tourists—and that they are frequently derided for treating foreign countries like Disneyland—Peter Christian Hansen’s Ted is a caricature that has the disturbing ring of truth. Ted is shocked by the dirtiness of the place (at Disneyland, one finds nary a cigarette butt on the street) but the energy of the city and all the fun things to do—spicy food! People on bikes instead of in cars! Eight-year-old girls!—draws him in.

Boats focuses mostly on two aftercare shelter workers, Sidney Webb and Sister Margaret, and the three girls who have been thrust into their care. Margaret is practical, whereas Sidney has started to conflate his work with his home life. Both have had years of practice and insight into the plight of victims of sexual abuse and the challenges of psychological rehabilitation, but the job never gets any easier. Nathaniel Fuller and Dale Hodges as Sidney and Margaret play off each other beautifully.

The girls—five, eight, and thirteen years old—struggle in their new environment. The eldest, a thirteen-year-old named Yen, is played by Jeany Park with a sexualized strut that masks her terror. After the doctors tell her she has AIDS, she tells the other two girls that the shelter is nothing more than a vacation. When they’re thrown back into the real world, she says, they’ll have to work in a factory twelve hours a day, with no one to protect them. She can’t damper the girls’ mounting optimism, however. Mayano Ochi and Rebecca J. Wall infuse their young characters with ever-increasing wonderment and vigor. They look out the window at schoolchildren with bicycles and uniforms, and believe that one day, they might be able to have that kind of life, too. In the words of Sister Margaret, God bless those little angels.

Boats on a River runs through June 10 at the Guthrie Theater.

Any time the Minnesota Orchestra’s famously Finnish Osmo Vänskä conducts something by his countryman Jean Sibelius, it’s like a musical postcard from the homeland for local Scandinavians. So it wasn’t too surprising to see Vänskä receive an extended standing ovation and shouts of “bravo” from the lunchtime crowd at Orchestra Hall yesterday. Vänskä had just finished leading the orchestra through an energetic (and for Vänskä, at times, aerobically intense) rendition of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major, the final movement of which is a classic piece of symphonic showmanship.

Finland doesn’t have many heroes, so it’s hard to understate Sibelius’s importance to Finnish music and culture. But close observers of the Minnesota Orchestra may be interested in this concert for other reasons, particularly any light it might shed on Vänskä’s fascination with two of Sibelius’s biggest influences—namely Beethoven (who influenced everyone) and Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. Vänskä has tasked the orchestra with recording the complete symphonic works of both men over the next ten years (the Beethoven project is half done, and the Bruckner project begins this fall), and it’s a fair bet that his affection for Sibelius is one of the reasons why.

Sibelius isn’t the only Nordic attraction on this week’s program, which will be repeated tonight (Friday) and Saturday. Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger also performs Bela Bartok’s Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra. On Thursday, Haefliger pulled off the unlikely trick of pulling listeners in with the melancholy, almost agonizingly slow second movement, the payoff for which was a crisp, thunderous third. In addition, the program kicks off with a short but evocative piece by Aaron Kernis, the Minnesota Orchestra’s new music adviser.

The stories you hear about the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s early films often have an epic trajectory. There’s his editor’s attempted coup d’état on the first Godfather; his decision to bar producer Robert Evans from the set of The Cotton Club; and, not to be outdone, Coppola’s nervous breakdown and the notorious Marlon Brando no-shows and typhoons that wreaked havoc on the production of Apocalypse Now.

These stories have such staying power that it’s easy to forget that Coppola hasn’t written or directed a film in ten years, that he’s better known these days for his wines and his ridiculously talented daughter than he is as the auteur responsible for some of the best movies of his generation. You forget (or forgive) Jack, The Rainmaker, even The Godfather III.

Coppola’s latest opus after the decade hiatus is the heady romantic thriller Youth Without Youth, adapted from a novella of the same name by Romanian religious historian/philosopher Mircea Eliade. It won’t premiere until the RomeFilmFest in October (and moves into theaters later in the fall), but last night Coppola visited the Walker Art Center for a Q&A and a screening of CODA: Thirty Years Later, a documentary filmed on the set of Youth Without Youth.

The documentary was shot by his wife, Eleanor, who has fashioned quite the career out of chronicling her husband’s passionate brand of filmmaking. (If they ever divorce, there’s enough material in Eleanor’s published Apocalypse Now diaries and her footage in Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse to void any prenup.) Coppola introduced CODA by warning that although Hearts of Darkness was an invitation to “watch Francis suffer,” this documentary finds him at a considerably more settled stage in his life. That’s for sure. The doc begins with Eleanor addressing the camera as Francis hams it up behind her, the first indication that we’re not going to get many unguarded insights about life lived with this neurotic, loquacious talent.

Disappointingly, CODA quickly becomes a meandering, self-congratulatory tribute to Coppola’s return to more personal filmmaking. It’s filled with the sorts of quickie career insights and what’s-it-like-working-with-a-genius cast interviews (with Tim Roth, Matt Damon, and others) that you’d expect to find in a typical making-of DVD extra, which it will likely end up becoming. What’s not so expected are Coppola’s scattershot musings on the nature of time and consciousness (don’t worry, it’s to promote the new film), some second-unit footage from his aborted Megalopolis project, and also gorgeous clips from Youth Without Youth that manage to intrigue but thankfully not give away too many details.

CODA may be Coppola’s not-so-subtle reminder that he’s back to shooting smaller-scale films that he writes, directs, and produces himself, but the packed house last night at the Walker didn’t need the reminder. They were there for the free-form audience Q&A that took on the tone of a film-school guest lecture. A very chatty Coppola talked craft and business to an audience that included a good number of film students (he requested they be seated in the first several rows) and declared Youth Without Youth his attempt to make films like he’s sixteen again, without the financial and creative constraints of a big studio footing the bill. “Do you want to be Steven Spielberg or Jim Jarmusch?” he asked the students, promising that, “If you do beautiful work, you won’t starve.”

Lamenting the increasing corporatization of independent filmmaking and railing against the franchise films that steal talented directors like his buddy George Lucas from making the great, smaller works they really want to, he also conceded a few compromises of his own. Jack and The Rainmaker, he said, were the result of a deal he made with himself to be a hired gun for the studios in order to finance work of his own. He’s also resigned that his Megalopolis script, which positions NYC at the center of a utopian drama, is likely unfilmable post-9/11.

These days, though, Coppola has his hands in more than show business—there’s the food and wine empire, the resorts, the literary magazine. You have to wonder whether these endeavors are giving him a second life as a raconteur, one who doesn’t need to make a movie every year to have something to talk about.

Peruvian jazz guitarist Andrés Prado moved to the Twin Cities a couple of years ago from his native country, and he has since had the local jazz cognoscenti buzzing over his Latin-flavored approach to the classics, the polyrhythmic polish of his own compositions, the quality of musicians he has recruited to play with him, and his own fiery fingerboard technique.

At the Artist’s Quarter last night, Prado was joined by Peter Schimke on piano, Pete Whitman on sax, Anthony Cox on bass, and Kevin Washington on drums. The first couple of numbers were hampered by technical problems and some fussing over the mix, but the band eventually found its groove, with Whitman’s tenor sax and Washington’s intricate drum-work leading the way.

I had never heard Prado play live before last night, so I didn’t quite know what to expect—but then again, defying expectations is one of the things Prado apparently likes to do. His brand of jazz does not sound like it jumped directly out of the Amazon jungle—it sounds more like the music may have started in Peru but then taken a long detour through Southern California, hung out with Spyro Gyra for a summer, slept on Thelonius Monk’s couch for a while, and pitched a tent in John Coltrane’s backyard. Prado mixes all of these influences in unpredictable proportions, alternately flavoring classics with a hint of Latin spice and lacing simple Peruvian folk songs with contemporary jazz.

In concert, Prado is a fan of the slow burn. Playing a Gibson cutaway acoustic-electric guitar, he loves to start out low and quiet, often with a single three- or four-note passage articulated slowly enough to invite impatience. Then layers and textures come into the mix as the individual band members join in, accelerating the whole time until the air is eventually filled with a cacophonous blur of sound. After that, there is no option left except to slow things down and bring it all back to Earth—back to those first few notes.

It’s fun stuff—sophisticated, but accessible. It would be even more fun if a larger crowd was there to see it. The AQ had plenty of empty seats last night—and the cover is only ten bucks—so a few more open minds and ears wouldn’t hurt. The guy is a serious up-and-coming talent who deserves a larger audience.

The great thing about a show like Photocentric is the sheer variety. You have photographers just starting out. You have photographers at mid-career. You have amateurs with a good eye. You even have a few established sorts. And you have a bunch of different styles and subjects, from hunting enthusiasts to small-town beauty queens, suburbs to housing projects. It’s a bit of a visual joyride.

The Minnesota Center for Photography puts on consistently great shows these days. Since moving to its Northeast location a few years back, the organization has come into its own as a true regional hub for the photographic arts. So you might be tempted to think of Photocentric (MCP’s annual juried member show) as a nice nod to its mission, but not in the same league with its other shows. As it turns out, this would be a poor assumption. The bar is set very high.

You can measure the quality of a juried show a few ways: quantitatively (Photocentric features 60 works from 51 artists from a pool of 706 entries); qualitatively (Lisa Hostetler of the Milwaukee Art Museum judged the entries); or purely subjectively (I stopped to give my full attention to more than a dozen images).

The pieces in the show come from members who live within 525 miles of the center—about a day’s drive in any direction (Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, Fargo, etc.). The idea is to highlight the quality (and quantity!) of work happening in the Upper Midwest.

So exactly what kind of work are we talking about? Brian Lesterberg and Brian Ulrich—both included in Photo District News’ "30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch 2007"—were represented, as were veteran photographers Dona Schwartz and Chuck Avery. Evan Baden’s “Live With Nintendo” (left) shows a freckle-faced girl under a blanket “tent” illuminated by the screen of a handheld game. Todd Deutsch’s “Halo 2” offers a different take on gaming with young men in an all-but-empty room, joysticks in hand, eyes forward, mouths slightly agape. Both were selected for the Walker’s collection, which is pretty impressive all by itself.

But the truly great thing about a show like this is the possibility of being blown away by the work of people you’ve never heard of before. Knowing the images were selected solely based on merit and not on reputation makes it all the more compelling. Laura Miliorino’s “Egret Street” is one good example (of many). The image, from her Secret Suburbs series, shows a family posed behind glass, reflecting a nondescript suburban house and lawn. Carrie Stewart’s “Bomb 2006” (left, top) offers a study in point of view, in this case from the level of a diner counter. And Jason Reblando’s “Baseball” (left, bottom) triptych of two kids posing, gloves on, faces defiant, in front of a housing project, deserves mention too. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. The show’s on through May 27.

Photos courtesy of the artists and of the Minnesota Center for Photography.
 

You might, at some point in life, wonder about the social skills of crayfish, lesbianism by association, feline annihilation via buttered toast, or the unique gravitational pull of China—or not. But if you were at last night’s Theory Slam at Bryant-Lake Bowl listening to theories on each, you might start. 

The event, produced by the Bell Museum of Natural History as part of its Café Scientifique series, offers a whimsical take on the conventions of scientific thought modeled after the poetry slam format. Anyone can participate. On this occasion, four individuals and two groups made their way to the stage to articulate and elaborate upon theories that challenged physics, biology, and credulity alike. It’s science, very loosely defined, with a sense of humor.

Their motivation? The glamorous prizes, of course—all from the bins of St. Paul’s Ax Man Surplus—and the possibility of winning the evening’s grand prize, what the evening’s emcee, John Erik Troyer, described as an “official Dungeons & Dragons role-playing fabric thingy.”

First up, Lisa and Eric. Their theory of “Murphyons” started from the basic premise that while toast always lands butter-side down, cats always land right-side up. Put them together and, bam!, sudden and irrevocable annihilation of feline and bread alike.

Next up, Zack, a hipster in a T-shirt that read, “Back off, man. I’m a scientist.” His theory revolved around tiny aliens that long ago took the form of molecules, formed into DNA and RNA, and proceeded to try to dominate one another by evolving, respectively, into complex organisms (e.g. animals and plants) and viruses. His proof? They’ve been locked in mortal combat ever since.

Ashley came after Zack, offering a theory of  “lesbianism by proxy.” Roger, a fifty-something with a pocket protector, offered his take on the variability of truth as demonstrated by the advertising slogan, “tastes great, less filling,” followed by Steve, with his theory of the variability of zipper fortitude. Luke, outfitted in tie-dye, retorted with a theory of the existence of social crayfish (in the Philippines) in ecological peril.

Points given by audience members were averaged; the panel of scientific experts weighed in. Zack and Ashley tied in round one. But by the end of round two, Steve had pulled a stunning upset with a theory that posited a unique gravitational pull of all usable equipment, capital and manpower toward China. Trust me, it was brilliant.

Though Steve was the big winner, no one went home a loser. Troyer’s refrain that no one loses at Theory Slam proved true as prizes were handed out to first, second, third, and “not last.”

Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro is my favorite opera. The number two doesn’t even come close. I was enchanted by Minnesota Opera’s recent production for honoring the opera by being scrupulously faithful to the text. I was initially less enthralled by Theatre de la Jeune Lune’s Figaro (it isn’t called The Marriage of Figaro for a reason), but once I overcame my sense of outrage at the sacrilege of tampering with a masterpiece, I gave myself over to this unique experience that, in the end, proved to be a triumph.

The show opens with a bang—a loud explosion—and we are in 1792 Paris, in the midst of the French Revolution. It is many years since the events of The Marriage of Figaro and an elderly Figaro (Steven Epp) is trying to keep Count Almaviva (Dominique Serrand) alive during the Reign of Terror. Epp and Serrand created this duologue which frames and informs (and sometimes interferes with) the presentation of the opera. It is an amazingly erudite and entertaining colloquy that takes advantage of the full Figaro mythology, bringing in references to The Barber of Seville, the first of Beaumarchais’s plays in which Figaro appears, incorporating incidents from Beaumarchais’s life to fill out Figaro’s back story, and even climaxing with incidents from La Mere Coupable (The Guilty Mother), the third, and almost unknown, play in the Figaro trilogy. The witty text is full of corny and ribald jokes, as well thought-provoking insights—for instance, drawing parallels between Figaro and the burgeoning democracy in America.

Purists expecting The Marriage of Figaro will be lost. Epp and Serrand play fast and loose with Mozart’s masterpiece, often providing just bits and pieces of ensembles, reordering the sequence of numbers, and even assigning arias to different characters. But the results telescope the action in interesting ways and add new levels of nuance and reference to the familiar story. And for all the show’s cavalier attitude to the score, the singers maintain the integrity of the music.

But it’s always dangerous to allow two actors to create a show for themselves. You run the risk that they will fall victim to self-indulgence. Epp and Serrand occasionally fall into that trap, subjecting the audience to their verbal excess. For example, the grand sextet, during which Figaro’s parentage is revealed, loses all its humor when it’s severely cut to give Epp another monologue. Both Epp and Serrand are such exceptional actors, however, that they are able to overcome their shortcomings as playwrights and still deliver deeply heartfelt performances.

The musical values are equally adept. The members of the Penitimento String Quartet, along with music director Barbara Brooks at the keyboard, provide a lively accompaniment. The arrangements are so skillful that I hardly missed the lush sound of a full orchestra. All the performances, instrumental and vocal, are informed by a clear understanding of Mozart’s style, and the impeccable clarity of the ensemble work was amazing.

Jeune Lune’s cast of local singers can stand comparison with any of the singers that Minnesota Opera brought in for their production. Bradley Greenwald portrays a violent and darkly sexy Count, his rich baritone unfazed by any of the athletic feats he was expected to perform. Christina Baldwin brings a perfect physical embodiment of a boy to her performance of Cherubino, along with a resplendent mezzo. Jennifer Baldwin-Peden’s Countess begins as a flighty and high-strung woman, but grows into a noble and commanding character. Her luxurious soprano makes the most of her two great arias and blends perfectly with the Susanna of Momoko Tanno in an enchanting Letter Duet. The performances are enhanced by the subtle use of video, which provides occasional but often striking close-ups of the singers.

Taken on its own, Figaro is a fascinating work that adds immeasurably to the experience of Mozart’s opera. For all its authorial excesses, it is a grand entertainment and a frequently moving piece of musical theatre.

Figaro runs through June 23, in repertory with Don Juan Giovanni, at Theatre de la Jeune Lune.

It’s easy to feel a certain ambivalent nostalgia about all those studio-financed Hollywood movies shot in Minnesota during the 1990s. They were hardly models of craftsmanship (Feeling Minnesota and Jingle All the Way, anyone?), but they brought loads of money to the state, proved invaluable training for local cast and crew, and conferred a certain prestige on a film community that has always been rich in talent but casts a decidedly low national profile.

The Hollywood-to- Minnesota production pipeline eventually dried up as the studios followed the tax incentives and cash rebates to Canada and overseas, but in recent years those films have been replaced by a handful of more modestly budgeted Minnesota-shot indies (Factotum, A Prairie Home Companion, Sweet Land), many of them with local financing, high-profile casts, and scripts that we can actually be proud of. I take it as a sign of good things to come that Minneapolis native and Guthrie Theater alum John Carroll Lynch (left), a character actor who started his prolific film career with small roles in many of those decade-old productions (he played Marge Gunderson’s duck-stamp-painting husband in Fargo), was back in town last night, directing a staged reading of his first screenplay, Remember Minnesota, at the Ritz Theater.

The screenplay, which Lynch co-wrote with his writer/producer friend Tess Clark, already has a director attached (Mikael Saloman, who helmed the Band of Brothers miniseries) and an executive producer (Twin Cities lawyer John Stout) who is meeting with potential investors for (we can hope) a Minnesota-filmed production sometime in our near future. Last night’s reading, part of the Screenwriter’s Workshop’s excellent ScriptNight series, was a first public look at what that film may one day be and a chance to offer the filmmakers some anonymous feedback. Set against a stripped-down Ritz stage (just a couple of oars on the floor and an oversized screen projecting nostalgic rowing images), the intimate scene positioned twelve local actors (including Sally Wingert, Steve Yoakam, Jonas Goslow, Maren Bush, and Sara Marsh) on stools for a surprisingly animated reading that would have been well worth the $10 ticket price even if Lynch wasn’t attached to the project.

The script condenses into one year the two-year saga of the University of Minnesota men’s crew team's improbable journey to the 1987 Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s Championship Regatta. Remember Minnesota works in the reassuringly familiar tradition of Hoosiers, Rudy, Miracle, and a host of other feel-good sports melodramas. This time, the underdog is Brad Melby, an underachieving stoner from Bismarck, North Dakota (the real Melby, now a respectable Ameriprise Financial adviser, was in the audience last night along with the rest of the winning four-man, one-woman crew). In the script, Brad runs into his childhood crush, Vanessa, on the U of M campus and follows her to a recruitment meeting for the rowing team for which she is varsity coxswain.

There’s enough talk at this meeting about how rowing is a metaphor for life (“It turns followers into leaders, mediocrity into greatness”) that we can safely assume, even in these early moments, that our slacker protagonist will not only make the team but be transformed by the experience. Part of his motivation for attending the blistering early morning practices, of course, is the proximity to Vanessa, who is oblivious to his feelings—just as Brad is unaware of his growing romance with Lottie, the endearingly jaded musician who works in the school cafeteria and smuggles Brad post-practice meals.

If you’re a seasoned viewer of sports films, there’s not a lot that will surprise you in Remember Minnesota (the script's got everything from the father whose grudging respect the son has to earn to an unexpected turn of events that positions our unlikely hero for his big moment), but this is a genre that is so familiar and so satisfying in its familiarity that it would be a disaster to tinker too much with the formula. Lynch and Clark, to their credit, keep the narrative moving forward at a brisk pace, with lots of laughs and a host of characters that are, frankly, impossible to dislike.

It’s too early, though, to predict what kind of film this will be. Director Saloman is a two-time Oscar nominee for cinematography (The Abyss and Backdraft), which could translate into some thrilling rowing sequences. But casting is key. Sports films are ruined by boneheaded casting—think Rob Lowe as the pretty boy rower of Oxford Blues. Lynch has already agreed to play Brad’s father in the film, and I’ll cast a vote for Guthrie vet Wingert to reprise her role last night as Brad’s mother. But even more importantly, I'm crossing my fingers that we continue to nurture films and film events like these that put the focus back where it should be.

“I believe our job as artists is to tell the truth,” Patrick Scully said as he began the Deeper Shadows Cabaret, an evening of short works mostly inspired by German culture pre- and post-Holocaust, but mostly aimed at present-day America. But, he went on to say, it takes some work to figure out what truth needs to be told.

Amen to that. And I’d add it’s just as important to figure out how to tell the truth. (I’m dying to put quotation marks around that—the “truth”—but I’ll save the deconstruction for another day.) Like the rest of us, artists have political opinions. But it’s not the most effective tactic for artists to come out with opinions blazing. Let’s consider an example from literature: When Hamlet wants to “speak truth to power,” he sets up a play in which his murderous uncle, the king, can watch a reenactment of the murder he’s committed. Hamlet’s strategy works: the king feels genuine horror at what he’s done. But the play works by dramatization, not rhetoric. If Hamlet had begun with criticism of the king, how could he even have gotten the king to sit down for the play, and how could he have reached the king’s defended heart? Rhetoric arms; drama disarms.

I doubt any right-wingers were in the audience at Patrick’s Cabaret. Why would they have bothered to come to a show that wears its liberal politics so securely on its sleeve? And if the right-wingers weren’t there, was there any “power” to “speak truth” to? Preaching to the choir is reassuring, no doubt, but it’s not effective.

But this isn’t merely a matter of what works best. When the artist knows in advance what he or she means to say, the art becomes contracted and flat. Such art is easy for audiences to “get,” but once you’ve gotten it there’s nothing more. Contrast this with the rich mystery of work that explores rather than presents, that questions rather than states. I’d rank Venus DeMars’s lo-fi, yet dramatic, work in this latter category. For “Ritual,” DeMars and some helpers carefully arranged twenty-four tall candlesticks onstage, erected a pair of twig wings, and laid out what sounded like barbed wire but turned out to be fuses. All this was buildup to the moment in which the naked DeMars knelt in front of the wings, now burning—an enigmatic but powerful image—but the work was also the painstaking preparation, was also DeMars holding together a black satin robe, flicking a lighter, and carefully lighting each taper. This mix of the prosaic and the magical holds more interest than the flatter, more predetermined pieces littering the evening.

Even some of these others would have been more compelling had they not been framed in a deadly combination of earnest politics and less-than-earnest production quality. Technical difficulties happen; lo-fi can be charming. But disregard for the audience’s welfare is another matter. Two hours and change without an intermission, with speeches and unrelated works larded in: Deeper Shadows wore out my patience.

Too bad. This was a good idea, and featured some strong performers; Dreamland Faces played some lively music. But the politics drowned the cabaret.

Appreciators of music fall into two basic camps: those who devour a CD, read the liner notes, and care about who is playing what—and those who just want to hear a catchy tune or load some background music onto their iPod. The majority of Andrew Bird's fans on Friday night at First Avenue fell into the latter camp, and, because I identify more with the former, I walked away from the show somewhat disappointed. Not in Bird’s performance, but in the First Ave. audience, especially their lack of appreciation (or basic respect) for the opening act, Dosh.

I understand the plight of the opening band. The audience isn't generally there to hear them, so unless they absolutely command attention, they're not going to get it. What puzzled me was that this audience was obviously familiar enough with the songs from Bird's new release, Armchair Apocrypha, to sing along with them during the main show. What few in the audience seemed care about, or even recognize, is that Martin Dosh, besides being an incredibly inventive musician in his own right, is also integral to Bird’s sound. In addition to playing drums for Bird, Dosh helps create the framework for Bird's songs by looping the many of the beats and melodies that Bird builds upon.

Dosh opened for Bird, playing Rhodes and drums and looping them, while Mike Lewis joined on saxophone, mini keyboard, and bass guitar. The crowd talked through the entire set. I heard a guy behind me say, "I don't get why people like this. It's just two guys." Just two guys? Yeah, like just Simon and Garfunkel. Just the White Stripes. Just the Eurythmics. Dosh and Lewis were playing complicated, creative music that they performed tightly and with confidence. It’s a mystery to me why an audience so enamored with Bird’s sound wasn't more responsive to Dosh. After all, he’s the guy who gives Bird’s music many of its layers and textures—which is the sort of thing you learn if you bother to read the liner notes. He deserved better.

After Dosh's set, when the screen lifted to reveal Andrew Bird onstage playing violin, the vibe changed noticeably. The audience screamed and applauded with a ferociousness they had denied Dosh. But Dosh gamely joined in on drums. Ylvisaker came in on bass. Bird continued on violin, then whistled and played it back on a loop while he tapped the glockenspiel. Finally, Bird began singing "Imitosis" with a sweet, soothing voice that has broken even a few mainstream hearts by now. The audience screamed some more, and the show took off from there.

As a musician, Bird not only stands out because he whistles and plays violin and glockenspiel in a nonstandard genre, pop music, but also for how he plays them. He not only plays the violin with his bow, for instance, but also strums and plucks the strings as he would a guitar's. Last night was exciting because a live audience got to see him construct a tune by first plucking his violin strings, then looping that sound; whistling over the first looped track, then looping that on top of it; then playing the violin with his bow while singing. Amazing.

Some of the pluckier, staccato sounds off Bird's new CD were fuller and more electrified when played live. Bird himself told me yesterday he doesn't intend to play songs live exactly as they were recorded; there's always room for improvisation. On "Fiery Crash," Bird opened the song with his guitar slung over his back while he played violin, then he switched to guitar. Bird made this seamless transition time and again mid-song, changing the melody of a song from guitar to violin while Ylvisaker simultaneously switched his rhythms from bass to guitar. On a studio recording, these instruments would likely be tracked at separate times. To see it done live is remarkable. 

After "Masterfade," off The Mysterious Production of Eggs, the band had a false start to "Plasticities." They were unhappy with the way the live looping had begun, so the band cut the music and decided to take it from the top, noting they'd rather be happy with the layering from the start than play the whole thing through with an inferior loop. It was a good move. Watching this song being performed live (it's the same tune they performed on Letterman last month) offers even the most casual of listeners the opportunity to marvel at Bird’s ingenuity both as a musician and arranger.

During "Heretics," I saw a smile crease each of the three players' faces. Nothing amplifies the excitement of a live show more than seeing the performers recognize that they're creating something profound in real time, in front of an appreciative audience. Dosh—stationed behind the drums as equally close to the front of the stage as Bird and Ylvisaker—must have found it a little ironic, but with any luck, they’ll be screaming for him next time around. 

One of the strangest things about George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara—now showing on the Guthrie’s proscenium stage—is how, more than 100 years after the play was written, its polemics on the nature of religion, good, and evil still resonate. Positively the strangest thing about it, though, is how daring and irreverent Shaw’s evisceration of religious piety feels today, especially concerning wealthy people who profess allegiance to a higher power than money.

Because religiosity has become such a central part of the global conversation on survival these days, such a play, if it were written now, would look uncomfortably like a frontal assault on right-wing Republicans, Halliburton executives, architects of the war in Iraq, religious zealots of all kinds, and anyone else in the world who eats righteous indignation for breakfast. Fortunately, Shaw was an equal opportunity offender, so he has just as much fun exposing the hypocrisies of liberal academics, idealistic know-it-alls, do-gooders, overbearing mothers, spoiled children, war protesters, and—ahem—journalists. Heck, Shaw even takes pot shots at the homeless, so if your ego ends up feeling a little bruised when the final curtain comes down, you won’t be alone.

At the heart of the play is a moral dilemma: An aristocratic family in England likes its position at the top of society, but that status is paid for entirely by their absentee millionaire father, whom none of them have ever met, and who happens to make his millions selling bombs, missiles, and cannons to the military. The play begins as the children are entering adulthood, thinking about getting married, and money—specifically, where it is going to come from—is suddenly becoming an urgent concern. The children are repulsed that their privilege has been bought with bombs and blood, but what they hate even more is the idea of being poor, so they are conflicted. The eldest son, Stephen (played by Joe Paulik), is too idealistic to accept the money, and the eldest daughter, Barbara (played by Sarah Agnew), has joined the Salvation Army in order to save the souls of poor people, whose lack of money is a clear sign that their souls need saving. In walks Andrew Undershaft, the imposing patriarch of the family (played by Paul O’Brien), and the war between idealism and realism begins.

The Guthrie’s production feels a bit bloated and sluggish at times, but once the setup is in place, the play hums along nicely, with fine—if sometimes over-the-top—acting from a number of players, including some great work in supporting roles by J. C. Cutler, Jonas Goslow, and Helen Halsey, standing in for Isabell Monk O’Connor. The set for a visit to Undershaft’s munitions factory in second act is particularly ingenious. It looks like a cross between a World War I Soviet propaganda poster, an M. C. Escher painting, and a toy factory, and is filled with Sisyphean workers who roll giant steel balls up a seemingly endless ramp to the heavens. The set is classic Guthrie eye candy, but it also unites many of the underlying themes of the play, so kudos to set designer Neil Patel.

This production takes place on the Guthrie’s midsized proscenium stage, so it feels more like a traditional play than it would if it were performed on the thrust stage. But don’t let that stop you from seeing it. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as laughing while one’s own beliefs and pretensions are being skewered. In this way, at least, Major Barbara has something for everyone.

Two summers ago, when Robert Altman was shooting the Prairie Home Companion film adaptation at the Fitzgerald Theater, I planted myself outside the theater one afternoon for some unapologetic stargazing. I expected scores of paparazzi, weeping Lindsay Lohan fans, and a few Garrison Keillor junkies. The crowd, if you could even call it that, was considerably less impressive—just a handful of professional autograph collectors and occasional traffic from the neighboring apartments.

The sleepy scene perked up, though, when Lohan appeared, shielded by oversized sunglasses, a meaty bodyguard, and a small girl posse. She was quickly whisked inside the hair and makeup RV, but not before we were warned that there would be absolutely no photographs or interaction with the star during the five seconds she materialized in front of us. No matter that there was really no crowd to contend with, or that Oscar nominee Virginia Madsen arrived via minivan shortly thereafter and worked us loiterers like it was the Iowa caucus. I suppose you reach a certain level of celebrity where it no longer matters whether the crowds appear—the SWAT-like tactical efficiency by which your entrances and exits are orchestrated have taken on a life of their own. Clearly, Lohan has become a cog in that sad machine.

Speaking of sad . . . this week I previewed Lohan’s latest film, Georgia Rule, a dreadful multigenerational comedic weeper that opens today in theaters. The film made headlines last year when a movie exec publicly scolded Lohan for logging more hours on the party circuit than on his set. There are enough uneasy parallels between the out-of-control girl Lohan plays in Georgia Rule and the actress’s own real life role as Hollywood’s enfant terrible to make an optimist wonder if she wasn’t just working on her character when she missed her call times.

Mark Andrus’s tin-eared script casts Lohan as Rachel, a foul-mouthed Vassar-bound brat sent to Idaho for the summer to live with her grandmother (Jane Fonda) whose so-called Georgia Rules are supposed to transform this insouciant sexpot into a well-mannered member of the family. Literally dumped on the side of the road by her alcoholic mother (Felicity Huffman), Rachel immediately meets and tries to seduce a shaggy-haired young local played by Garrett Hedlund, one of the few actors in the film who doesn’t embarrass himself (which reflects well on us, since Hedlund is from Roseau, Minnesota). Rachel also throws herself at a depressed widower (Dermot Mulroney) to whom she confides a family secret that becomes the impetus for the histrionics that follow.

I imagine director Garry Marshall bears much of the responsibility for this mess of a movie (let’s face it, Pretty Woman was a fluke), but it’s also one of those films where you sense that everyone, no matter where their names fall in the end credits, happily cashed their paychecks knowing full well the train wreck they signed up for. Each character is given a one-note malady and not much room to become anything more than that. In fact, Fonda hardly has a character at all, which is a problem since her matriarch is supposed to hold this dysfunctional family together. Her scenes with Huffman mine familiar mother-daughter terrain that might resonate with easy-to-please chick flick audiences, but often it’s as if the two were acting in separate movies—Fonda wisely underplays the fiery moments, while Huffman’s screechy, offbeat line readings try too hard to make Andrus’s lame dialogue sing. Lohan, I suppose, fares the best. But at what price? My guess is most people will assume she’s not acting.

Some of my friends sit around every evening
and they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
and the promise of an early bed
You either shut up or get cut up;
they don't wanna hear about it.
It's only inches on the reel-to-reel.
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel

-From Elvis Costello’s “Radio, Radio”

Driving to the Elvis Costello show at Myth, I didn’t understand exactly what I was getting into. On the one hand, the show had potential: E. C. was playing in a rock club instead of a theatuh, and he was promoting a new, very-iTunes-worthy, greatest hits collection, The Best of Elvis Costello: The First Ten Years, so I would be guaranteed more of his wired-with-attitude early stuff than his married-to-Diana-Krall boring stuff. But there’s only so much a greatest hits collection and a veteran band (The Imposters, who include two of E. C.’s original band, The Attractions) can do: At fifty-two, E. C.’s both older and softer, and the whole thing was prominently sponsored by Visa Platinum. This from the guy who sang “Radio, Radio.”

As I walked in, there was Fat Elvis, wearing sunglasses indoors, singing some song I’ve never heard before, to a crowd packed with middle-aged dudes full of vodka and that specific brand of sour cynicism E. C. acolytes seem to radiate. Kind of an ugly vibe. And that was before I bumped into Neal Justin.

Earlier in the day, the Strib had eliminated Neil’s TV critic position. He was obviously hurting, shrugging off my condolences with a resigned, “Well, tonight I have Elvis and vodka.” Looking around, the place seemed to be packed with other Strib mourners, including Jon Bream and Chris Riemenschneider. As Elvis droned through another mid-tempo song from his snoozy middle period, I figured my time might be better spent watching some detectives, or anything else, really. I went out to have a cigarette and met the PiPress’s Ross Raihala and his editor Kathy Berdan. We gossiped about the carnage their former boss Par Ridder was strewing at the Strib (fifty writing jobs, including Justin’s and fashion critic Sara Glassman’s). “It’s kind of weird,” Ross said. “We’re the ones that are coming out okay.” 

Finally, I heard the strains of “Alibi” and hurried back into the club. E. C. always wrote great bitter breakup tunes, which were fitting on a night a bunch of dazed Strib writers were glumly taking them in. The Imposters really found their groove on this one. In the middle, Elvis even worked in a snippet of John Lennon’s “I Found Out” from John and Yoko’s Plastic Ono Band. While Elvis mimicked Lennon’s sarcastic, “Don’t give me that ‘brother, brother, brother . . . ’ ” I thought of Par Ridder and all his empty lip service about a “commitment to journalism.” During the big meeting on Monday, one Strib staffer reportedly asked, “Is this the same speech you gave over in St. Paul?”

As for E. C., the show wound up being pretty good. He played for two hours, and got down to business in the encores, playing songs we all (or at least all of us bitter white guys) can sing along to, including “(I Don’t Wanna) Go to Chelsea,” “Radio, Radio,” “Blood and Chocolate,” “Allison,” “Dissolve,” and “Pump it Up.” During the last song, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?” I thought about Jon Bream, standing a few feet from me. Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of Jon’s writing. In fact, there are plenty of writers at the Strib who hammer out lazy, conventional columns and articles all year long whose loss I wouldn’t exactly mourn. But losing it so Par Ridder can make another fat bonus? That hurts.

Oh well, not everything is about heartbreak, change, and pain. There are still a few reliable constants in the world, such as vodka, Elvis, and—of course—Visa. 

In the annals of high school achievement, we are accustomed to hearing about the victories of various and sundry student athletes, or the occasional whiz kid who out-spells the competition by knowing a twelve-vowel word for the underbelly of a scarlet tanager—but sometimes the most extraordinary triumphs go unwitnessed by all but a lucky few.

One such triumph occurred Sunday afternoon, as the three winners of the Minnesota Youth Symphonies (MYS) annual Symphony Solo Competition—Eleanor Bartsch, Daniel Kim, and Sophie Kim—took the stage to perform to a packed house at Orchestra Hall. Backed by the MYS Symphony Orchestra, one of the finest youth orchestras in the country, each of these students played with a level of poise, maturity, and musicianship far beyond their years.

Eleanor Bartsch (violin), a senior at Bloomington Kennedy High School, and Daniel Kim (viola), a senior at St. Paul Central High School, teamed up to deliver a confident, spirited rendition of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in Eb Major. The duo handled the piece’s playful interchanges with ease, and appeared completely unfazed by the pressure of the moment or the grandeur of the venue.

The performance that really brought the house down, however, was Sophie Kim’s sizzling turn as the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, one of the most challenging works in the entire violin repertoire. Half an hour long, with extensive passages of fiery fingerwork, this is a piece that commands the respect of even the most seasoned professionals. Yet Kim, a junior at Edina High School, maintained complete control over Tchaikovsky’s pyrotechnics throughout, and ended up delivering a performance that was as emotionally intense as it was technically stunning. Her orchestral accompaniment, conducted by Manny Laureano, was equally effective in its own right, providing a lyrical, nuanced foundation for Kim to soar.

It’s difficult to overstate the impressiveness of such a feat in a musician so young—Kim was simply magnificent. To be fair, however, she shared the stage with more than 200 young musicians in MYS’s four orchestras, all of whom are accomplished players in their own right. In a perfect world, all of these kids would receive the recognition they deserve. Yesterday, they had to settle for coming very close to perfection. I felt privileged to see it, and judging from the hooting and hollering from every corner of Orchestra Hall, so did everyone else who was there.

Joshua Scrimshaw and Shanan Wexler, the writers and performers of From Here to Maternity, have a loyal fan base of improv and sketch comedy lovers. Scrimshaw is one-half, with his brother Joseph, of the The Scrimshaw Brothers, famous for their long-running raucous, bum-baring, liquor-swigging late-night cabaret acts. Wexler is one of the co-writers and performers of We Gotta Bingo and a veteran of the Brave New Workshop. The two seem like a good match, but when thrown on stage with a script and no director, these excellent performers lack the dynamism that won them their followings in the first place.

From Here to Maternity is about a thirty-something couple named Charlie and Meg. Meg wants to have a baby—signified by an alarm clock going off at the top of the show—and Charlie is a little hesitant. After explaining that she wants someone to take care of them when they’re “old and insane,” the couple proceeds to give it their best shot. Scrimshaw and Wexler make a sweet and believable “regular” couple in this fly-on-the-bedroom-wall atmosphere. Unfortunately, that’s also this show's downfall: most couples’ conversations—especially if they’re about making whoopee—are somewhat boring.

The script is very funny at times and full of zingy one-liners: “We’ve been married for six years and clocked in hours of pointless sex!” screams Meg. To which Charlie responds, “Kids are a major commitment . . . eighteen years to life.” Later, when they’re getting it on, Meg enhances the mood by saying, “Cervical mucus is like a uterus short bus.” It’s the stuff of improv and sketch comedy gold, but falls flat as memorized lines.

After the first scene, Scrimshaw and Wexler read the audience a revisionist Curious George story that becomes a parable for the way people are urged to raise their children (complete with illustrations). When George walks in on his adopted father having sex, he’s sent off to a Spanish immersion Montessori and eventually put on Ritalin for having ADD and a learning disability. The Man in the Yellow Hat tries to convince the doctor that there’s nothing wrong with the rascally George, but his cries go ignored. In another bit, a C-section–loving obstetrician and a nag champa–doused midwife literally duke it out onstage. There’s also a jazzy song called “Toilet Seat,” sung by the raspy-voiced Wexler, begging her husband to clean in exchange for some hot preggers action. She has an appealing voice. Scrimshaw and Wexler’s point is clear: medical professionals and drug companies are in bed together, corporations’ definitions of “family friendly” benefits are a joke, and the hardest part of parenthood might be getting through premeditated intercourse and gestation.

Not much else happens during the rest of this mildly amusing evening, and that’s simply not enough to fill ninety minutes. From Here to Maternity feels more like a bad Neil Simon play and not at all like what these kinetic, very funny, physically gifted performers are capable of. As the run progresses, I expect that Scrimshaw and Wexler will ease into the script and pick up the pace. As a Mother’s Day show, it’s a cute diversion. As a piece of theater, it needs a little help.

****

From Here to Maternity runs Saturdays and Sundays, through May 27, at 7 p.m. at Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 W. Lake St., Mpls. Tickets are $14 ($12 with a Fringe button). 612-825-8949.

The Minnesota Opera is ending an adventurous and successful season with a winning production of Mozart’s masterpiece, The Marriage of Figaro. In many ways this is a perfect opera, and I’m glad to report that it’s receiving a local staging worthy of its greatness.

Based on a French play by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, itself a masterpiece, the opera tells a tale of class warfare. Figaro, valet to the Count, is engaged to marry Susanna, the Countess’s maid. But the Count is trying to assert his right as nobleman to be the first to sleep with Susanna. Demands to honor an old marriage contract, the astonishing revelation of parentage, and an extended charade with masks, along with the antics of the Countess godson and the horny Cherubino, keep the comedy bubbling along for four long acts.

The sets by Carl Friedrich Oberle are full of rich period detail. The furnishings and costumes could arguably have been more elaborate, but they form a fine backdrop to director Kevin Newbury’s realistic staging. Newbury is a smart director; smart enough to let Mozart remain center stage. He allows the comedy to develop out of the characters, rather than resorting to shtick, which makes for moments of delicious revelation, even in a work so familiar.

Musically, things got off to a rocky start, but improved as the show progressed. Denis Sedov’s Figaro was adequate, but sounded strangulated at times, especially in the beginning. As the Countess, Erin Wall had trouble maintaining the long legato lines of her two sublime arias, though she did add a strong voice to many of the ensembles.

On the plus side was Lauren McNeese’s Cherubino. Her warm voice and pixyish performance were utterly enchanting. Much has been made of a countertenor singing the role in the second cast, but it’s hard to imagine him being more endearing as the oversexed teenager. And since even Beaumarchais instructed the role to be played by a young girl, this remains the ideal choice.

Also an asset was the Count of Carlos Archuleta. His big aria is one of the weakest in the score, but Archuleta made it one of the musical highlights. Christine Brandes’ Susanna who was the true star of this show, however. She produced a rich, European tone that had just the right edge to it, and used it to create a sharp, witty character who is clearly in charge.

Once past the Overture, conductor Robert Wood led a well-paced, well-modulated performance. He kept the comedy moving, while still being responsive to the needs of the singers. He also presided over a shrewd use of the continuo instruments that accompany the recitatives. They added interest without ever being intrusive. The performance also made intelligent use of appoggiaturas (added notes and variants to the printed text) that added several musical surprises.

The surtitles could have been more complete, and the translations more elegant, but this is a common problem with English translations. Still, opening night attracted a much younger audience than is usual for a performance of classical music, and they were presented with a worthy example of why this opera so great. 

****

The Marriage of Figaro runs through May 13 at Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

Cantus has a knack for combining the beautiful, the heartfelt, and the humorous into an experience that is accessible and entertaining. Friday night’s grab-bag concert (the final one of their 2006-2007 season) at Westminster Presbyterian married an erudite first half and soulful variety show in the second half with a sense of cohesion.

Cantus opened with “A Sound Like This,” a long-form work commissioned from Minneapolis composer Edie Hill. Based on texts by Kabir urging us to listen to the universal music within, Hill’s mystical piece could only be given justice by a group of this caliber. After reading the source material in turn, the singers began the piece in whispers and hissing like wind whipping through pine trees. The meditative drones and very close harmonies were so perfectly in tune the room was crackling with the energy of the sound. Particularly satisfying was the powerfully rhythmic third movement illustrating the phrase “listen friend, this body is a dulcimer,” which explored the body’s resonance not just vocally, but through intricate patterns of clapping, slapping of thighs and chest, and stomping of feet.

Second on the program was the world premiere of Steven Sametz’s “We Two,” which strings together fragments of Walt Whitman poems. It struck me as appropriately male, reflecting all the longing and aching of the text, exploration of the shadings of male vocal timbers through very close harmonies and range of force, and lending a sense of tender masculinity throughout.

After a short intermission, the concert resumed with selections chosen by the singers of Cantus rather than by its artistic director. Leaving programming to performers runs the risk of being enormously satisfying to them but a disappointing and incoherent jumble to the audience. However, it worked—perhaps because of the American framework or the tailor-made arrangements, or simply because of their commitment to each piece.

Cantus gave Bernstein’s “New York, New York” appropriately campy stage antics, as though they were tourists in that “helluva town,” riding subways, reading guidebooks, taking photos in front of landmarks (in this case, the audience).

Judging by the wild applause, cheers, and whistles that erupted, the audience favorite was a barbershop quartet arrangement of “Basin Street Blues.” Usually I find barbershop either excessively nostalgic or cheesy, but this was all style and polish, seductive and smooth. You could hear a pin drop in the audience.

Cantus also performed Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer;” “When I Fall in Love” as arranged by singer Gary Ruschman; an exquisite rendition of David Hurd’s “Love Bade Me Welcome,” rearranged by the composer for Cantus; the world premiere of an original pop tune written for Cantus by Minneapolis singer/songwriter Chris Koza; a unison setting of the African-American spiritual “He Never Said a Mumberlin’ Word;” and a cleverly staged “It Ain’t Necessarily So” taken completely out of its Porgy and Bess context. The concert closed with another audience hit, “Somebody’s Prayin’,” in a sweet and soulful gospel arrangement by one of the group’s tenors, E. Mani Cadet. He introduced his selection with his personal story of looking through the rubble on 9/11 for his wife, who worked in the only building left standing at Ground Zero. He said only got through the day by thinking that someone out there was praying for him.

Bass Tim Takach recognized the departure of Cantus’s executive director, Michael Hanawalt, who is going back to school for choral conducting, by saying, “For years you got to see his beaming face singing up here with us, but maybe in a few years you can see his backside.”

The men returned to give the encore demanded by the audience and sang “There Is Sweet Music Here.” What a great start to the weekend.