Nov. 03--For some Chicago early music groups, the path to success has been bumpy. Leadership failures, internal squabbles, loss of personnel and other problems continue to threaten their survival, miring them in mediocrity and frustrating efforts to make the city the nationally recognized Midwest hub of period performance it could and should be.
The Haymarket Opera Company is one of the happy exceptions -- a group that appears to be doing everything right. And it is reaping the considerable benefits thereof.
In its fifth season, the Chicago troupe, whose specialty is historically informed performances of intimate, seldom-heard Baroque stage works, has converted many locals to this rare repertory through its lively and polished presentations. Backed by a supportive board and efficient management, Haymarket Opera has established itself as an artistic brand to be trusted.
"A lot of groups in our position sort of tank after a few years but we are actually in a growth position," declares cellist Craig Trompeter, Haymarket's artistic director. "We are now one of the major Chicago groups and have a real following, after just four seasons. We are looking to the future and making big plans."
It certainly would appear that way.
Haymarket Opera is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a greatly expanded 2015-16 season that marks the launch of annual Lenten performances of little-known Baroque oratorios.
Also on the books is a multiyear plan to resurrect rare 17th and 18th century operas that require a larger stage than is available to Trompeter and friends at their home base, the 230-seat Mayne Stage, in the Rogers Park neighborhood -- and also accommodate more customers.
For the moment, however, Haymarket is sticking with Mayne Stage and going with a smaller-scaled George Frideric Handel opera, just as it did for its very first production ("Aci, Galatea e Polifemo," in 2011).
"Amadigi di Gaula" ("Amadis of Gaul"), a neglected masterpiece from Handel's early London period (1715), will receive four performances this weekend at Mayne Stage -- including, for the first time, a final show on Monday night.
Trompeter will lead an 18-member period-instrument orchestra, with staging by director Sarah Edgar. The roster includes three dancers and four singers, including the remarkable countertenor Jose Lemos, as the titular knight who battles demons to save his beloved from the enchantments of a sorceress. The Baroque-style costumes and sets are designed by Meriem Bahri and Zuleyka V. Benitez, respectively. Performances will mark what is billed as the opera's Chicago premiere.
"There's this huge repertory that doesn't get much attention in this city or in most places in the country," Trompeter observes. The cellist and HOC artistic chief could well be referencing the little-known chamber operas that have been the company's mainstay over four seasons. But in fact he means the ambitious slate of Lenten oratorios HOC is planning to present, one per season, beginning in March.
Alessandro Scarlatti's "San Giovanni Battista" is first up in 2016, to be followed by C.P.E. Bach's St. Matthew Passion in 2017, Marc-Antoine Charpentier's "David et Jonathas" in 2018, Giacomo Carissimi's "Jepthe" in 2019 and Scarlatti's "Aga e Ismaele" in 2020.
Performances of "San Giovanni" (the oratorio is based on the biblical tale of John the Baptist and Salome) are scheduled for March 4 at Chicago Temple in downtown Chicago and March 5 at Church of the Atonement in the city's Uptown neighborhood. Closing out HOC's Mayne Stage season will be Pier Francesco Cavalli's 1651 comic opera "La Calisto," May 6-9.
With Haymarket's first forays away from Mayne Stage, "We wanted to serve the downtown Loop crowd," explains Jeri-Lou Zike, the company's marketing director and concertmaster. "And since oratorios require neither sets nor costumes, they are manageable within our budget," Trompeter adds.
One measure of the respect with which Haymarket is held, both inside and outside Chicago's early music community, is the fact that the best period musicians -- including harpsichordist Jory Vinikour, violinists Martin Davids and Zike, and bassist Jerry Fuller -- -- are eager to perform with the group.
"When we go around the country and ask people to come play with us, they say 'yes' right away," Zike reports. One reason, she adds, is that, "From the beginning, excellence was important to us in everything: playing, singing, costuming, sets." "And just being super-organized," adds Trompeter. The board recently validated his achievements by promoting him from music director to artistic director.
The Lenten oratorio series, as it turns out, is only the beginning of Haymarket's expansion plans.
Trompeter and company will be joined by the renowned countertenor Drew Minter for a summer opera course taking place in June at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts that will culminate in performances of Monteverdi's opera "The Coronation of Poppea." If plans come to fruition, HOC expects to produce the U.S. stage premiere of Marin Marais' 1696 opera "Ariane et Bacchus," based on a new scholarly edition, at Chicago's Athenaeum Theatre.
"Our repertory plan between now and our 10th anniversary season is giving us an organizing path," the artistic director says. HOC's artistic and funding growth, and public demand for more performances, all have encouraged him to broaden the company's reach. "We've received five new foundation grants this past year; there's excitement on the board; and members are fully behind our artistic vision moving forward.
"I think it's pretty clear that we're not going away."
Haymarket Opera Company's production of Handel's "Amadigi di Gaula" opens at 7:30 p.m. Friday and continues through Monday at Mayne Stage, 1328 W. Morse Ave.; $45-$65; 866-468-3401, www.haymarketopera.org.
Joshua Bell honors Josef Gingold
The recital by violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Sam Haywood over the weekend at Orchestra Hall was, as Bell said, his way of honoring Josef Gingold, his greatly influential violin teacher at the Indiana University School of Music at Bloomington.
In its particulars the program could well have been something Gingold (who died in 1995 at 85) played early in his career. But, then, conservative musical choices also have been a hallmark of Bell's recitals. Friday's concert was built around two A-major masterpieces for violin and piano: Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata (No. 9) and Gabriel Faure's Sonata No. 1, Opus 13.
Bell and Haywood powered their way through a virile and pulsing account of the Beethoven, in which contrasts of dynamics, tempos and tone color were writ large. Few of our top solo violinists command bow technique as formidable as Bell's, and the burnished, infinitely varied sound he pulled from his 1713 "Huberman" Stradivarius violin honored Beethoven's purposes as much as Bell's own.
In Haywood, the violinist had a musical partner as searching and deeply committed as he. That much was clear throughout their fresh give and take of the Beethoven sonata but also in the idiomatic clarity of texture, suavity of phrasing and tenderness of feeling the duo brought to the Faure -- Gingold's favorite sonata, Bell said in his running remarks to the audience.
Tomaso Vitali's once-fashionable, now-neglected Chaconne drew a full-blooded reading Baroque performance purists would have scoffed at, but which violinist and pianist invested with absolute conviction.
Bell kept virtuosic display front and center through his concluding mini-marathon of programmed encores -- Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 1 (arranged by Joseph Joachim), Fritz Kreisler's "Liebesleid" and Henryk Wieniawski's "Scherzo-Tarantelle." There was plenty of fiddle fireworks here to delight the crowd, but also a fair measure of charm, not to mention a sterling musicianship that would have earned an approving pat on the back from Bell's famous teacher.
Sharps and flats
-- Randy Elliot, former assistant artistic administrator of the Cleveland Orchestra, has become director of artistic administration at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He reports to Cristina Rocca, the CSO's vice president of artistic planning and his former colleague at the Cleveland Orchestra.
-- The CSO also has announced two appointments to its viola section: Sunghee Choi, a former member of the Lyric Opera Orchestra and the Grant Park Orchestra; and Youming Chen, formerly of the Kansas City Symphony. Choi joined the CSO on tour last week; Chen's appointment will take effect Feb. 1.
-- Also, Louise Dixon, the CSO's longtime second flute, has retired from her position after 42 years in the orchestra. She ties as the third longest-serving flutist in CSO history.
-- Pre-construction work is set to begin this week for a new School of Music building on DePaul University's Lincoln Park campus. The 185,000-square-foot facility, which was designed by the Chicago and Washington, D.C.-based architectural firm Antunovich Associates, will hold teaching studios and rehearsal spaces, a concert hall, two recital halls and a jazz hall. The complex was announced in 2009 as part of the university's 10-year master plan.
jvonrhein@tribpub.com
