An eye-opener from far away

N.C. State University looked far from home when it picked the architect for its new library, named for former Gov. Jim Hunt.

A few twinges of jealousy struck me, I have to admit, during a presentation by Craig Dykers of Snohetta, a firm founded in Oslo, Norway, in 1989. (A quick apology: The first vowel in the firm's name should be that O-with-a-slash that their language uses but ours doesn't. As far as anyone can tell me, my keyboard can't get it from blogger.com. Sorry, Norway.)

Dykers devoted a hefty portion of his 90 minutes or so to the opera house his firm designed in its hometown. As you can see from the photo above (by Christopher Hagelund from www.snoarc.no) it sits right on the city's waterfront.

Its plaza, rather than being hemmed in by a railing, slants right down to the water. If you click on the photo for a larger version, you'll see this: After the plaza rises alongside the theater and meets the roof line, it then turns and covers the roof. So a visitor can start at the water, standing toe-to-toe with the swans, and walk up and around to the promontory atop the building, where there's a commanding view of the harbor. Magnificent. People who don't care what's happening onstage go to sight-see or sunbathe.

The plaza is roomy enough to accommodate alfresco audiences for video relays from inside the theater. The indoor audiences can mingle in lobbies that are airy, spacious and free-flowing.

The building itself wasn't what set off my pangs, though, so much as what it represented. It showed what designers can come up with when they -- and their employers -- imagine a theater that's more than just a box. That's how Sydney, Australia, created the opera house that's the city's emblem around the world.

Charlotte's mind evidently doesn't work that way. The Blumenthal Performing Arts Center has almost no visual profile at all -- just a glorified awning on Tryon Street, basically. The newer Knight Theater collides with the rear of the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art.

The Blumenthal center was built before my time in Charlotte, so I didn't see its creation. But I was on hand during the genesis of the Knight Theater and the rest of the South Tryon cultural center. During those months and months of public meetings, the discussions had one focus: making sure that the buildings used up no more money or land than necessary. That's reasonable enough, as far as it goes. But creativity with the buildings' appearance -- even as a road to saving money -- didn't figure in.

It's always possible to learn, though. There no doubt are years ahead of us before Charlotte builds any more cultural facilities. That leaves time to drag more of Charlotte's leaders, especially those with sway over the arts, to presentations like the one by the architect from Oslo. Maybe their minds -- and eyes -- would open.

Met showings will offer operatic time travel

Even though two of the Metropolitan Opera's movie-theater showings are still to come this springtime, opera lovers can already start planning their itineraries for next season's musical journeys -- which will carry them from ancient Egypt and Carthage to 1960s Las Vegas.

Hector Berlioz's "The Trojans." Richard Wagner's "Parsifal." Mozart's "La Clemenza di Tito." Handel's "Julius Caesar." The 12-opera schedule for next season's high-definition relays is dominated by works that have never been seen in Charlotte and probably won't be in the foreseeable future.

There's just a sprinkling of familiar operas, such as Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love"and Verdi's "Aida." One classic, Verdi's "Rigoletto," will appear in an unfamiliar guise: The Met's new staging will move the setting from centuries-ago Italy to 1960s Las Vegas. (Maybe the jester Rigoletto's outburst against the courtiers who torment him can be changed to, "Cortigiani! Vil Rat Pack dannato...")

The series includes one almost-new opera, Thomas Ades' "The Tempest." There will be revivals of two neglected Italian operas: Donizett's "Maria Stuarda," as in Mary Stuart, and Riccardo Zandonai's "Francesca da Rimini," which is inspired by a character from Dante. The Met will also showcase a Verdi opera that isn't performed as often as its stature merits, "A Masked Ball."

Here's the schedule:

Oct. 13: Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love." Russian soprano Anna Netrebko plays a small-town girl who's courted by a local boy who thinks a potion will help.

Oct. 27: Verdi's "Otello." The Shakespeare-based tragedy stars tenor Johan Botha as the deceived war hero and Renee Fleming as his unjustly accused wife.

Nov. 10: Thomas Ades' "The Tempest." Another Shakespeare-inspired opera. Ades, one of England's leading composers, will conduct his own work.

Dec. 1: Mozart's "La Clemenza di Tito." Mozart's last opera centers on a conspiracy to kill a Roman emperor, who thwarts the plotters but forgives them.

Dec. 8: Verdi's "A Masked Ball." To get his historically based story of regicide past censors, Verdi had to move the setting from Sweden to Boston. Stage director David Alden's version will be in a "dreamlike setting," the Met's announcement says.

Dec. 15: Verdi's "Aida." The Egyptian epic will star a Ukrainian soprano new to the Met -- not to mention the rest of us -- named Liudmyla Monastyrska.

Jan. 5: Berlioz's "The Trojans." This is one of the few operas that can out-epic "Aida." It never even had a complete performance during its composer's lifetime. The cast includes Deborah Voigt, who played Brunnhilde in the Met's staging of Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung."

Jan. 19: Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda." This will be the Met's first staging of Donizetti's loosely historical drama about the doomed Mary Stuart. Like the play by Schiller (of "Ode to Joy" fame) that inspired it, the opera includes a confrontation between Mary and Elizabeth I that didn't really take place. Audiences don't seem to mind a little fiction in the interest of theatrics.

Feb. 16: Verdi's "Rigoletto." Verdi meets Las Vegas.

March 2: Wagner's "Parsifal." Tenor Jonas Kaufman -- who starred in the Met's recent HD showing of "Faust" -- portrays the "pure fool" who finally attains wisdom. Bass Rene Pape, who played the devil in "Faust," leaves the dark side to become one of the Knights of the Holy Grail.

March 16: Zandonai's "Francesca da Rimini." This luxuriant creation by a contemporary of Puccini's is inspired by a character from Dante's "Inferno."

April 27: Handel's "Julius Caesar." Spartanburg native David Daniels plays Caesar in this tale of the emperor and Cleopatra.

Verdi ups the ante on romantic rivalry

If two men competing for the same woman make a love triangle, what do you call it when a woman is being pursued by three men?

That's the situation in Verdi's "Ernani." It's one of Verdi's less-familiar operas, but the Metropolitan Opera will work on that Saturday, Feb. 25, when it beams "Ernani" into movie theaters, including Stonecrest near Ballantyne and Concord Mills in Concord.

The opera takes us back to 16th-century Spain. The heroine, Elvira, faces a trio of eager admirers. The one she loves is Ernani, a banished nobleman who has sneaked back leading a band of outlaws. The one she's engaged to is the elderly grandee Silva -- who's also her uncle, not that they considered that a barrier to marriage back then. The suitor who's most powerful is Carlo, the king of Spain. When he isn't focused on Elvira, he's angling to be elected as Holy Roman emperor. So he has to be cagey.

You can imagine the possibilities for romance, rivalry and revenge. While "Ernani" and the Victor Hugo play that inspired it were hot properties in the 19th century -- the play was a warhorse for Sarah Bernhardt -- they've now fallen into eclipse. In the eyes of 21st-century audiences, they probably have believability issues.

But Verdi's version is full of fiery, toe-tapping melodies, and they're its main claim for opera lovers' affections. While "Ernani" doesn't have a full-fledged hit tune, Elvira's stirring aria begging her sweetheart to fly away with her -- "Ernani, involami" -- has always been a soprano favorite.

The Met's Elvira will be Angela Meade, a young soprano who's tackling a role that has been a vehicle for some of the Met's biggest stars, including Leontyne Price. Marcello Giordani, the tenor whose ringing tones helped energize the movie-theater showing of Puccini's "Girl of the Golden West," will play Ernani. The sonorous tones of baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky -- star of the HD showing of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" -- should make for a kingly Carlo. And even though Silva is the opera's heavy, the smooth Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto may reveal at least a little something in him that's poignant.

(Photo of Marco Giordani as Ernani by Marty Sohl, Metropolitan Opera)

Bausch's choreography for the ages

Here's a pleasant surprise: "Pina," the film about the dance visionary Pina Bausch, will stay at the Stonecrest theater for a third week. Even at just one showing a day as of Friday, Feb. 24, it will still let dance lovers make acquaintance with a choreographer whose work has never been seen on a Charlotte stage.

There's a reason I didn't write "modern-dance lovers" above, even though Bausch was a trailblazer of that style. Inventive, surprising and compelling though her works are, a substantial part of their power comes from something that must be a byproduct of the choreography. I hope it would speak even to dance buffs whose devotion goes to other genres.

Something dawned on me as I was leaving the theater last weekend. Especially if someone is partial to classical ballet and its descendants, he or she could go through life thinking dance is mainly about the joys and sorrows of gorgeous twentysomethings. (Even in "Don Quixote," the old guy is mostly a sideshow.) Ballet's physical demands practically ensure that dancers are superannuated by the time they're into their 30s -- if they've been lucky enough to make it that far without their bodies' giving out.

Bausch is different. Though "Pina" does include a scene for a woman on pointe -- where Bausch's recipe includes an unconventional ingredient I mustn't give away -- most of Bausch's work goes nowhere near classical technique. Often, its intensity has nothing to do with sheer physical exertion.

So her dancers can keep performing into their 30s, 40s or even later. "Pina" reveals that when they do, they have an eloquence that youngsters can't equal. No doubt it's partly because they've lived in the choreography so long. But it's also because their faces and bodies are a little lived-in, too.

In "Cafe Mueller," a work that unfolds to poignant baroque music, a woman steps slowly forward. Her bare arms are by her sides, held just slightly forward -- and rotated around with their undersides exposed. It's as though she's inviting us to open her veins. The vulnerability that conveys wouldn't be half as telling if the dancer were a fresh-faced 20-year-old.

"Pina" is full of moments like that. On the way out of the theater, I ran into some members of N.C. Dance Theatre. You might think they wouldn't care about such things. But they, too, were struck by the veterans' skill and power. If you see "Pina," you may be, too -- especially if you aren't 20 any more.

Charlotte Symphony -- ready for its closeup

Audiences will see the Charlotte Symphony next month as they never have.

At the concerts March 30 and 31, video cameras will zero in on the stage. The images of the conductor and players at work will be beamed onto a screen above the orchestra, giving the audience an up-close-and-personal view of the musicians at work, the orchestra announced Monday.

The orchestra also will let the listeners vote on an encore to cap off the concerts. A list of options will flash onto the video screen, and the audience will vote via text message before the concert and during intermission.

This is the orchestra's latest venture aimed at revamping the concertgoing experience. Classical music, which has been presented in much the same way for generations, has to adapt to modern times, says the sponsor of the new ingredients.

"In our rapidly changing high-tech environment, innovation, creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit are essential ingredients for success," says Francisco Alvarado, president of Marand Builders, in a statement.

Drawing in new listeners ties in with the orchestra's years-long effort to put financial crises behind it. The orchestra is now in the third season of its KnightSounds series, which offers shorter concerts, a more-casual atmosphere and pre-concert mingling in hopes of attracting people who are new to classical music. The next KnightSounds program -- this Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24 and 25 -- features the choral blockbuster "Carmina Burana."

In the late-March concerts, Christopher Warren-Green will lead the orchestra in works by Tchaikovsky, climaxing with the tempestuous Symphony No. 4. The program is part of monthlong festival that will bring together Charlotte's leading cultural groups in a celebration of Tchaikovsky and Russian culture.

Charlotte's newest arts center: Stonecrest

Now that the Metropolitan Opera has helped turn multiplexes into performing-arts centers, this probably was inevitable: the Saturday afternoon cultural double feature.

I doubt that the Stonecrest theater planned it this way. So it isn't an official double bill. But look what you can do: first, make acquaintance with a trailblazing choreographer whose work has never been seen in Charlotte; second, experience a famously monumental symphony that's unlikely to be performed in Charlotte in the foreseeable future.

"Pina," (photo at right) Wim Wenders' film about the choreographer Pina Bausch, is starting its second week at Stonecrest. That lines it up with the Los Angeles Philharmonic's high-definition relay of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 -- the "Symphony of as Thousand," nicknamed for the massive number of players and singers it sets loose.

"Pina" has attracted notice because it not only showcases the late Bausch -- who often is credited with blending the art forms of dance and theater -- but it shows long stretches of her works in 3-D. I have yet to see it. But here's a testimony: A friend of mine who isn't particularly a dance lover enjoyed it because of the sheer visual impact of the 3-D sequences.

Mahler's titanic symphony will be transmitted live from a concert hall in Caracas, Venezuela. The LA Philharmonic will perform alongside Venezuela's best-known export other than oil: the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which is famous as the product of a music-education system that gives opportunities to children who otherwise have none. Gustavo Dudamel, the LA Philharmonic's music director -- and a product of the Venezuelan system -- will conduct.

Here's how it could work Saturday afternoon. There's a "Pina" showing at 1:35. The theater's website says the movie lasts an hour and 44 minutes. You could see it -- for $11.50 -- then have time for a break before Mahler begins at 5 p.m. Tickets for that are $20 for adults, $16 for children.

Nobody has to see both, of course. "Pina" will run at least through Feb. 23. So if you can't spare all afternoon Feb. 18, and you like music, you probably should aim for Mahler's Eighth. There's no telling when the Charlotte Symphony might ever be able to afford to perform it. And if there was ever a piece that can't quite come across through a CD or DVD in your living room, this is it.

Celebrate victory with Copland

Even if no one is sleeping, the Charlotte Symphony's audiences will get a wake-up call this weekend.

Most people will go into the concerts thinking they aren't familiar with Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3. They won't quite be right, though. And the orchestra will thunderously clear them up about it.

The symphony, clocking in at about 40 minutes, is Copland's biggest-scale orchestral piece. As it unfolds, listeners will no doubt pick up on a buoyant, balletic streak that links it to works they probably know well, such as "Appalachian Spring." Even in the slow movement, Copland kicks up his heels a bit before settling back down.

That sets up the surprise. The woodwinds spin out a few broad, quiet phrases that will give alert listeners a feeling of deja vu. Then, boom: The brasses and percussion let fly with "Fanfare for the Common Man," Copland's musical version of American exceptionalism.

Copland actually composed the "Fanfare" first, in 1942. He then borrowed it from himself when he wrote the symphony, from 1944 to '46 -- in other words, before and after the end of World War II.

Fans of the "Fanfare" can listen for the ways he tinkered with it. But there's no mistaking it. It doesn't take a leap of the imagination to hear its appearance in the symphony as Copland's way of welcoming the Allied victory. That sets up the finale as a dance of celebration. Who can resist a happy ending?

Photo: Copland in 1956, Associated Press