Good Morning and Welcome to Ruth Leon’s Theatrewise
I’m scrambling to finish writing this month’s Backgrounders which will fall into the Inboxes of paid subscribers on Wednesday. It’s about that strange genius Alfred Hitchcock and is liberally illustrated with his movies and other pictures of his life and career. If you haven’t already subscribed, you can still do so by clicking on the box and choosing one of the Paid choices.
As always, Ruth Leon’s Theatrewise is Free, and this week there are some wonderful arts online to enjoy. For example, violin connoisseurs can luxuriate in the expansive playing of Midori who takes on the only Dvorak concerto. We remember her as a tiny girl with a violin that looked too big for her but still produced some amazing music. She’s all grown up now.
The National Theatre has just released one of my favourite dramas, Red, in which a very grown up and conflicted Mark Rothko paints what became known as the Seagram Murals and then caused an artistic scandal when he refused to allow them to be hung in the restaurant which commissioned them.
The summer dance season is in full swing with a series of free livestreams from Jacob’s Pillow for you to watch once a week. Here, too, my friend Liz Callaway sings a beautiful Prayer with her son, Nicholas Callaway Foster.
Wimbledon starts this week and to celebrate my near-hibernation for the tennis fortnight, here’s the weird and slightly awkward combination of Andrea Bocelli and Jannik Sinner, together with music.
These are all available at the touch of a button and the links for each are just under the pictures. Some are free to watch, some need a subscription but if you’re a regular reader you have already subscribed to the National Theatre at Home and Medici. If not, it’s worth doing so.
Dvořák's Violin Concerto — Midori with Marie Jacquot
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One of the world's favourite violinists since her childhood, the extraordinary Midori has only grown better over the decades — and here she brings her legendary talents to the spirited Slavic sounds of Dvořák's Violin Concerto alongside French conductor Marie Jacquot and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin!
This was the Czech composer's only violin concerto with its dazzlingly complex cadenzas, magnetic solo-orchestra dialogue, and moments of folk-inspired beauty that will give you goosebumps from start to finish.
This program also features works by two women composers: Vivian Fung's 2018 Earworms — a commentary on the attention-demanding chaos of modern life — and Amy Beach's 1896 "Gaelic" Symphony in E minor, a critical and popular hit that draws inspiration from Irish, Scottish, and English traditional melodies.
Red – National Theatre
Red, a play by John Logan that I admired very much when it opened in London in 2009, a regard which only deepened when I saw it again subsequently in NY and elsewhere, has just been released online by the National Theatre.
In 1958, one of America’s greatest living artists, Mark Rothko, accepted a commission to produce a series of large paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant to be situated in the new Seagram office Building in New York.
The 'Seagram Murals' were a significant departure for Rothko. The intense, bright colours of his earlier paintings gave way to maroon, dark red and black. Rothko wished to create a deep connection between the viewer and his paintings: “I am interested only in expressing basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom.”
He accepted the commission because he wanted a permanent setting where the works could always be shown as a group and in an immersive environment but, when the paintings were completed, Rothko decided that a restaurant would not be an appropriate location for his work. He donated nine of them to London’s Tate Gallery in 1969.
These are the paintings that Rothko is creating during Red. The British actor Alfred Molina is extraordinarily effective as the explosive and mercurial Russian/American painter. His foil is Ken, Rothko’s studio assistant, played in this 2018 revival by Alfred Enoch. Ken is a young painter, keen to work with the great man as a learning experience, an ambition Rothko soon disabuses him of. But together they form a relationship of master and pupil, one in which they learn from each other.
Red was directed by Michael Grandage at a small theatre, the Donmar Warehouse, London, and it then transferred to Broadway in March 2010 with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne as Rothko and Ken, where it won 6 Tony Awards. This revival, in 2018, has Alfred Enoch in the role of Ken.
Polvere e Gloria – Andrea Bocelli & Jannik Sinner
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Those who know me well know how much I love tennis – playing and marvelling at those who can really play. Today is the start of Wimbledon, two weeks of sheer bliss whether you’re a rank beginner, a would be competitor or a Sinner.
This Grand Slam is known simply as The Championships, as though the French Open, the US Open and the Australian Open didn’t exist and, for diehard Wimbledon fans, they don’t. Grass courts, big hats, strawberries and the chance to watch the new generation of players asking their young, fit bodies to perform feats that no human body was designed to do. What does this have to do with the arts? Watch them for just an hour and then tell me this isn’t art at the highest, if less obvious, level.
Here is a rather surprising combination. A musical dialogue between two Italian stars, blending opera and storytelling. What happens when two champions meet off the court, in the shared realm of lived experience? The result is 'Polvere e Gloria', (Dust and Glory') a surprising musical collaboration between tenor Andrea Bocelli (not usually one of my favourite singers) and Jannik Sinner, the Number One tennis player in the world.
This is a conversation between generations—two different paths driven by the same passion. Andrea Bocelli, accompanying himself on the piano, lends his warm voice to, 'Polvere e Gloria' sung in both Italian and English, with some lovely pictures of their respective journeys, while Jannik Sinner contributes his thoughts about success,
“Improve every day, talent doesn't exist, it has to be earned.” “All you have to do is to be yourself.” Hmm, perhaps.
Jacob’s Pillow Free Livestreams
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Deep in the beautiful Berkshires, there’s a worldclass dance festival, Jacob’s Pillow, devoted to the performance of every kind of dance. This summer, Jacob’s Pillow Live presents free weekly livestreams from all three of their stages, including the newly rebuilt (after fire) Doris Duke Theatre. If you are in a different timezone, you don’t have to watch the performances live as they’ll be available for 24 hours after the live broadcast, starting Sundays at 8pm ET. Choose among this very eclectic collection of dance presentations or watch them all, weekly, free. You need to register first.
KanKouran West African Dance Company
This livestream will be available to Encore from 8pm ET Sunday, July 6 until 8pm ET Monday, July 7. Register for Free
The School at Jacob's Pillow Contemporary Performance Ensemble
This livestream will be available to Encore from 8pm ET Sunday, July 20 until 8pm ET Monday, July 21. Register for Free
Elle Sofe Company
This livestream will be available to Encore from 8pm ET Sunday, July 27 until 8pm ET Monday, July 28. Register for Free
Sekou McMiller & Friends
This livestream will be available to Encore from 8pm ET Sunday, August 3 until 8pm ET Monday, August 4. Register for Free
Shamel Pitts | TRIBE
This livestream will be available to Encore from 8pm ET Sunday, August 10 until 8pm ET Monday, August 11. Register for Free
The School at Jacob's Pillow Tap Dance Performance Ensemble
This livestream will be available to Encore from 8pm ET Sunday, August 17 until 8pm ET Monday, August 18. Register for Free
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
This livestream will be available to Encore from 8pm ET Sunday, August 25 until 8pm ET Monday, August 26. Register for Free
The Prayer – Liz Callaway and Nicholas Callaway Foster
Click here to watch
I’ve known and admired Liz Callaway for years. She is a Tony and Grammy nominee and Emmy Award-winning actress, singer and recording artist. She made her Broadway debut in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in Baby, and for five years, won acclaim as Grizabella in Cats. She has also starred in the original casts of Miss Saigon, The Three Musketeers, and The Look of Love.
She, and her sister, singer/songwriter Ann Hampton Callaway, are the top layer of cabaret performers playing concerts, together and separately, throughout the world.
What I didn’t know about Liz is that she has a son. Well, I knew she had a son. What I didn’t know was that this son, Nicholas Callaway Foster, is also a successful Chicago-based singer, actor, and cabaret performer. And he's terrific. See for yourself. Here he is, with Liz, at 54 Below, New York’s premier cabaret venue, singing The Prayer in Italian and English.
I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms – Nancy Shear
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-Knew-a-Man-Who-Knew-Brahms/Nancy-Shear/9798888456620
I don’t review books on Ruth Leon's Theatrewise but I want to bring this one to your attention because I’ve just read it myself and became absorbed into the life of the classical music world that it opened for me.
Nancy Shear was a music-mad teenager escaping from a difficult home life when she skipped school to go to concerts in a nearby town.
Music became her life as she became a music librarian for the Philadephia Orchestra and music assistant to one of the world’s greatest conductors, Leopold Stokowski. This opened the door to the world of classical music and its foremost interpreters, and she grew to become a force in the music industry.
I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms takes readers into the homes, studios, and minds of legendary artists with whom Shear shared close personal relationships, including Stokowski, Mstislav Rostropovich, Eugene Ormandy, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Many of these brilliant and talented artists were also outrageous, egocentric, and tyrannical.
I had to ration my reading of this book because I couldn’t put it down. If you are a classical music lover you can’t fail to be enthralled as I was by a puff of the rarefied air that outsiders rarely get to breathe.
Thank you for being here and, please, subscribe to my new venture, Backgrounders, an illustrated appreciation of an artist at a length I don’t have space for here. This month, Alfred Hitchcock, next month, the great Ella Fitzgerald. Just click on the box below. Ruth Leon’s Theatrewise will be back next week with more arts online.
Love, Ruth