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Featuring the dancers of the LakeCities Ballet
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 7:30 p.m.
At Lakeland Baptist Church, Lewisville (Directions) Adults $25 Seniors (60+) $20 Students $10 Families $60 (no matter how large the family) Special student and faculty rate for UNT and SMU: $5
Narrated by James Crawford
Choreography by Kelly Lannin
The City of Lewisville, Season Sponsor
More on A Soldier's Tale | Igor Stravinsky | James Crawford (narrator) | LakeCities Ballet | Kelly Lanin (Choreographer) ‘ A soldier's Tale (L'histoire du soldat) is a 1918 theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" set to music by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, based on a Russian folk tale, was written by the Swiss writer C.F. Ramuz. The work was written for small ensemble to compensate for the lack of players due to World War I (since so many were enlisted in the armed services) and was premiered in Lausanne on 28 September 1918, conducted by Ernest Ansermet.
A soldier returning home from war is met by the Devil, who persuades him to trade his violin (his soul) for a book promising untold wealth. When Joseph finds unhappiness instead, he challenges the Devil to a game of cards. Joseph loses his wealth, but regains his violin. His playing cures a princess and he wins her hand in marriage. They don’t live happily ever after, however, because Joseph violates the Devil’s warning not to try to revisit his past. He tries to visit his mother in secret and, just over the border, is claimed by the Devil.
The story is told by three actors: the soldier, the devil, and a narrator, who also takes on the roles of minor characters. A dancer plays the non-speaking role of the princess, and there may also be additional ensemble dancers..
The music is scored for a septet of violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet (often played on trumpet), trombone, and percussion. It is in the modernist style and is rife with changing time signatures. For this reason, it is commonly performed with a conductor, though some ensembles have elected to perform the piece without one. Much of the music – especially the concerto-like violin part – is considered virtuosic. |
Igor Stravinsky
A Soldier's Tale
('L'histoire du soldat')
To be read, played, and danced In two parts
Text by C. F. Ramuz English version by Michael Flanders & Kitty Black
Music by IGOR STRAVINSKY Edited by John Carewe
Choreography by Kelly Lannin
Narrated by James Crawford
Dancers Staci Cornell, Brianna Cullum, Sarah Johnson, Elizabeth Hooks, Karlee Kautz, Taylor Kopp. Lauren Schafer, Sally Schweitzer, Nicole Votolato
Instrumental Ensemble under the direction of Adron Ming Violin – Jennifer Griffin Double bass – David Shaw Clarinet – Kenneth Krause Bassoon – Charlie Hall Trumpet – Bert Truax Trombone – James McNair Percussion – David Elias
Drawing of Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso
From a Wall Street Journal April 10, 2008 review of the New York Stravinsky Festival
The time span covered by this Stravinsky Festival underscores the extraordinary panoply of musical history witnessed by a composer who not only heard Tchaikovsky conduct before his premature death in 1893 but also heard the Beatles. "What amazes me," notes [festival director] Mr. Steele, "is not the variety, which is what first confronts you, but the degree of unity and the essential Russian-ness of all his music. No matter what he is writing, Stravinsky is so much himself -- so smart, and so completely able to remain one or two steps ahead of everyone else." |
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Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971)
His Rite of Spring heralded the century.
After that, he never stopped reinventing himself — or modern music Time cover July 26, 1948
After leaving Russia, Stravinsky lived for a while in Switzerland and then moved to Paris. In 1939 he fled the war in Europe for the U.S., settling in Hollywood. In 1969 he moved to New York City. (The story goes that when asked why he made such a move at his advanced age, he replied, "To mutate faster.")
Over the years, Stravinsky experimented with virtually every technique of 20th century music: tonal, polytonal and 12-tone serialism. He reinvented and personalized each form while adapting the melodic styles of earlier eras to the new times. In the end, his own musical voice always prevailed.
In 1947 Stravinsky befriended Robert Craft, a 23-year-old conductor who was to become his chronicler, interpreter and, oddly, his mentor in some ways. It was Craft who persuaded Stravinsky to take a more sympathetic view of Arnold Schoenberg's 12-tone school, which led to Stravinsky's last great stylistic development.
In his long career, there was scarcely a musical form that Stravinsky did not turn his hand to. He regularly produced symphonies, concertos, oratorios and an almost bewildering variety of choral works. For me, however, Stravinsky was at his most sublime when he wrote for the theater. There were operas, including The Rake's Progress, composed for a libretto by W.H. Auden and one of a handful of 20th century operas that have found a secure place in the repertory. The ballets also continued; the last of his masterpieces, Agon (composed for another Russian choreographer, George Balanchine), came in 1957.
I heard him conduct only once, during a program in his honor in 1959 at New York City's Town Hall. What an event that was! Stravinsky led a performance of Les Noces, a vocal/theater work accompanied by four pianos — played by Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss and Roger Sessions. Each brought his own charisma to the event, but all seemed to be in awe of Stravinsky — as if he appeared before them with one foot on earth and the other planted firmly on Olympus.
He was electrifying for me too. He conducted with an energy and vividness that completely conveyed his every musical intention. Seeing him at that moment, embodying his work in demeanor and gestures, is one of my most treasured musical memories. Here was Stravinsky, a musical revolutionary whose own evolution never stopped. There is not a composer who lived during his time or is alive today who was not touched, and sometimes transformed, by his work.
Composer-performer Philip Glass has written many works of opera and musical theater
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James Crawford (narrator)
Since moving to Dallas ten years ago, James has appeared in a dozen productions at the Dallas Theater Center, including Pride & Prejudice, Joe Egg, The Real Thing, Twelfth Night, The Importance of Being Earnest, Our Town, The Night of the Iguana, A Christmas Carol, and the American premiere of Inexpressible Island.
In addition, James has performed at Theatre Three (Stones in his Pockets, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, As Bees in Honey Drown), Stage West (Angels in America, Man of the Moment), Fort Worth Shakespeare in the Park (Hamlet, The Tempest), the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas (Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor), Water Tower Theatre (Holiday Memories), Echo Theatre (Cloud Nine, Off the Map) and Theatre Britain (Betrayal).
He has worked with New York Theatre Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Theatreworks/USA and Circle Rep Lab. He has acted at such regional theatres as the La Jolla Playhouse (Elmer Gantry, and the premiere of Lee Blessing’s Fortinbras), and Triad Stage (Art and A Streetcar Named Desire).
James currently teaches acting in the division of
theatre at the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU, where he has directed
productions of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, and
Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. LakeCities Ballet Theatre is one of North Texas' premiere ballet companies performing professional productions for the past 25 years. In addition to a lavish and highly respected The Nutcracker production utilizing the talents of the Lewisville Lake Symphony Orchestra along with New York Guest Artists,
LBT's repertoire includes performances of Le Ballet de Dracula in October, Peter and the Wolf in March, and a Spring Performance of a full-length ballet or a mixed program in April.
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Paris' Théâtre des
Champs-Elysées, on May 29, 1913, was the setting of the most notorious
event in the musical history of this century — the world premiere of
The Rite of Spring. Trouble began with the playing of the first
notes, in the ultrahigh register of the bassoon, as the renowned
composer Camille Saint-Saens conspicuously walked out, complaining
loudly of the misuse of the instrument. Soon other protests became so
loud that the dancers could barely hear their cues. Fights broke out in
the audience. Thus Modernism arrived in music, its calling card
delivered by the 30-year-old Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Born in
1882 in Oranienbaum, Russia, a city southwest of St. Petersburg,
Stravinsky was rooted in the nationalistic school that drew inspiration
from Russia's beautifully expressive folk music. His father was an opera
singer who performed in Kiev and St. Petersburg, but his greatest
musical influence was his teacher, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. The
colorful, fantastic orchestration that Stravinsky brought to his folk
song-inspired melodies was clearly derived from Rimsky-Korsakov. But the
primitive, offbeat rhythmic drive he added was entirely his own. The
result was a music never before heard in a theater or concert hall.
In
1910 Serge Diaghilev, then director of the world-famous Ballets
Russes, invited Stravinsky to compose works for his company's
upcoming season at the Paris Opera. The Firebird, the first to
appear, was a sensation. Petrushka and The Rite of Spring
quickly followed. Soon Stravinsky's audaciously innovative works
confirmed his status as the leading composer of the day, a position he
hardly relinquished until his death nearly 60 years later. 
Kelly
Lannin, director of the LakeCities Ballet, is a versatile and
motivational teacher who enjoys teaching all ages and levels of
Classical Ballet. Originally from El Paso, Texas, Mrs. Lannin
received her classical training at Ballet El Paso from director,
Ingeborg Heuser, former ballerina of the Berlin Opera.