New York Classical Review

It’s always an occasion when an ensemble makes their first appearance in Carnegie Hall, and groups like to put their best foot forward. When that group has a built-in audience, especially a national one, there’s an irresistible urge to play to them. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can sometimes make an event feel a little scattered.

The Orchestra of the Greek National Opera made its first New York City appearance Thursday night in Carnegie, with a generous and enthusiastic complement of countrymen in the seats. With conductor Vassilis Christopolous on the podium, and a generous handful of guest musicians, the orchestra showed its concert side, and its crowd-pleasing side, and ended up amiably switching back and forth between the two without landing stably on either.

Again, that wasn’t a bad thing. The orchestra was here clearly to show off their musical range and also their place in Greek culture and their place in New York—the concert was part of a celebration of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. But it was a little messy, because there was even another organizing theme: “Nikos Kazantzakis: An Odyssey in Music.”

There were two halves to the program and the first was relatively abstract: three pieces of orchestral music from modern Greek composers, including the Greek National Opera’s director Giorgos Koumendakis. This music didn’t have an explicit connection to Kazantzakis, who was a poet, playwright, and novelist, but it did outline some flavors of Greek music. The second half was narrative music with explicit roots in Greek culture, and some direct connection to Kazantzakis, and featured soprano Maria Kostraki, mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, the Manos Hadjidakis Ensemble, and even two bouzouki players.

One of the most interesting elements of the evening was the opening work, an orchestration of Dmitri Mitropoulos’ Cretan Feast. Mitropoulos was one of the most talented and dedicated conductors of the 20th century, with associations with the Boston Symphony and New York Philharmonic, among other orchestras, and seven years as principal conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. Cretan Feast was a colorful, Tchaikovskian tone poem, and received a spirited performance from the orchestra, some murky articulation and off-center intonation apart.

Those were occasional lapses as well in parts of three of Nikos Skalkottas’s 36 Greek Dances. The first two didn’t feel like there was much dance energy, perhaps due to Christopolous’ light touch, but the third was quite good. That one (No. 3 Cretikos “Early at Dawn I Will Rise”)  had an unexpected slow prelude, and that seemed to focus all the musicians.

That led to Koumendakis’ impressive Amor Fati. An intriguing piece, structured so that the music comes in waves full of sparkling colors, this seemed a polished, fully realized performance, with the orchestra technically assured.

This was an intriguing opening half, and the second promised more, with Manos Hadhdakis’ Captain Michalas and a grand finale of selections from Zorbas, by prominent film composer Mikis Theodorakis. Both works mixed instrumental and vocal music. Kostraki was a throaty, sexy soloist in Captain Michalas, in front of the harpsichord, strings, guitars, and mandolins of the Manos Hadjidakis Ensemble.

The piece’s mix of sentimental Cretan songs, modernist updates of baroque gestures, and one awkward, third-hand Webern piece was hard to gauge, with no clear center. Zorbas is a ballet suite, not to be confused with Theodorakis’ score for Zorba the Greek.

Rachvelishvili sang the vocal parts with a rich sound, a nice contrast to the extremely dense, monochromatic scoring. There were plenty of lively rhythms, and the finale had the audience clapping on the beat up to when Christopolous turned to cue them out, to set up a false-ending pause.