Pictured: The Belk Theater at Blumenthal Performing Arts Center; courtesy Charlotte Symphony.
By Lawrence Toppman
Conducting classical music is one of the few jobs where a worker has the potential to get better every day until he dies. Christof Perick proved that this weekend, returning to the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra at 78 to lead a concert the like of which I never expect to hear again.
He left as music director in 2010, after a nine-year tenure that improved the orchestra and focused on his special love, core German repertoire from the late 18th and 19th centuries. So it made sense for CEO and president David Fisk to bring him back for an all-Wagner evening of non-vocal excerpts from six operas.
Perick walked slowly to the podium, stooping slightly and steadying himself once on the shoulder of concertmaster Calin Lupanu. He sat on a stool to conduct, occasionally lifting himself off it for emphasis. He never spoke to the audience – he almost never did back then, either, though his English was serviceable when I interviewed him – and acknowledged us only with smiles and a mouthed “Thank you.”
Yet from the shoulders to the fingers and above the neck, he displayed tremendous vitality. Most of these musicians never played for him, and those who did were in an orchestra with less cohesion. So he must have been overjoyed to have 10 French horns or four harps ringing out in unison in this mighty music.
Many conductors slow pieces way down as they age, as if to savor every note. Once Leonard Bernstein’s fire turned to embers, his tempos drooped like Spanish moss. So did Herbert von Karajan’s. But Perick slowed only briefly, for effects where needed, without dragging.
The first half offered three famous highlights: the majestic prelude to Act 1 of “Die Meistersinger,” the glowing prelude to Act 1 of “Lohengrin,” and the thrusting prelude to Act 3 of “Lohengrin.” Perick’s decision to split the strings – first violins with violas on his left, second violins with cellos and basses on his right – spread the soft shimmer of “Lohengrin” around the stage. The subdued Act 3 prelude to “Meistersinger” added a different mood, if little else.
After intermission came the fabulous, butt-numbing rarity that made this concert unique: A mashup of music from the “Ring” cycle played in 14 sections for 70 continuous minutes, the longest unbroken stretch of orchestral music I have ever heard. I would rather have digested it in four sections, each offering a suite from one of the “Ring” operas, in order to have chances to scratch, cough, applaud and otherwise take tiny breaks. But that’s not what Dutch arranger-composer Henk de Vlieger had in mind.
“The Ring: An Orchestral Adventure” journeys from the first glittering chords of the gold-filled Rhine to the final roaring flames that consume Valhalla. De Vlieger does an extraordinary job, segueing from the rousing Ride of the Valkyries to the mystical Magic Fire Music without abrupt transitions. I didn’t miss hearing the voices of Rhinemaidens or Valkyries; I wished only for the sound of Brunnhilde in the Immolation Scene, celebrating the fall of the gods.
The music seemed to work on Perick like a case of Red Bull. Only once in that vast span did he take time off, leaning back to hear principal French hornist Byron Johns play the most famous horn call in Western classical music: Siegfried’s spacious, jaunty motto. The rest of the time, Perick spurred the musicians through pieces that were familiar, including the glorious death music for Siegfried, and less so, such as the excerpt where the hero slays the dragon Fafner.
Only once did an effect disappoint: The dwarves’ anvils in Nibelheim tinkled like Balinese gongs. The rest of the time, Perick beamed at the beefed-up orchestra, especially brass players of a kind who didn’t work here in his time. (Back then, you crossed your fingers each time they approached a difficult passage.)
I would have said, watching him step stiffly to and from the podium, that such a Herculean task would be beyond a man who’ll turn 80 next year. But you can never count an old conductor out when he’s doing what he loves.