Mark Morris: Mastery at BAM

Mark Morris (kneeling) joined an all-star lineup celebrating the 15th Next Wave in 1997. First row, L-R: Jene Highstein (artist), Kristin Jones (artist), Merce Cunningham (choreographer), Mark Morris (choreographer), Harvey Lichtenstein (BAM President/Executive Producer). Back row: Andrew Ginzel (artist), Susan Marshall (choreographer), Joanne Akalaitis (director), Bill T. Jones (choreographer), Lou Reed (musician), Bob Telson (composer), Ping Chong (artist), Howard Gilman (benefactor), Pina Bausch (choreographer), John Kelly (artist), Joseph V. Melillo (BAM Producing Director). Photo: Joanne Savio.

By Susan Yung

BAM has presented work by Mark Morris since 1984, when his debut program took place in the Lepercq Space and included one of his early milestone works, Gloria. Since then, more than 60 of his dances have graced BAM’s stages, with live music on every program. Pepperland—a tribute to The Beatles’ landmark album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, with a new jazz score by Ethan Iverson—will be at the Howard Gilman Opera House May 8—11. Here’s a look back at some of Morris’ previous choreographic mastery at BAM.

In Context: The Hard Nut

Mark Morris Dance Group’s beloved retro-modern reimagining of The Nutcracker, The Hard Nut, comes back to BAM for the holidays, playfully preserving the warm spirit of an essential holiday tradition Context is everything, so get even closer to the production with this curated selection of related articles and videos. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #BAMNextWave.

In Context: Mark Morris: Two OperasAn evening of Britten and Purcell

The choreographer presents a double-bill: Britten’s Curlew River, featuring the MMDG Music Ensemble, and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, featuring mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and the Mark Morris Dance Group. Context is everything, so get closer to the production through our series of curated links, videos, and articles. After you've attended the show, let us know what you thought by posting in the comments below and on social media using #MMDG.

On Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River

Choreographer Mark Morris, who has captivated audiences for over 35 years with his unwavering commitment to music, returns to BAM March 15—19 with a career-spanning double bill that perfectly embodies his trademark blend of emotion and rhythm, movement and music. In the first act, the vocalists and orchestra of the MMDG Music Ensemble unite onstage to tell Benjamin Britten’s haunting parable of maternal grief in Curlew River. Below, scholar Hugh Macdonald reviews the origins of Britten’s stirring (and oft-overlooked) music-drama.

TMC Fellows perform Curlew River at Tangelwood. Photo: Hilary Scott

Dictionaries of opera all have an entry “Curlew River,” but it is not really an opera. Britten called it a “parable,” along with its two successors The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son. Designed for performance in church and not in the theater, these three works fall in the sequence of Britten’s operas between A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Owen Wingrave, and belong to an important phase in his life when he was re-thinking the issues of music theater and, more broadly, the direction of his style. All three are presented in a Christian context, and although the two later works are based on biblical stories, the origin of Curlew River lies far from the Christian tradition in which Britten was brought up.

Stephanie Blythe Sings Dido

Mark Morris Dance Group in Dido and Aeneas. Tim Rummelhoff

By David Hsieh

“Opulent” and “majestic” are words frequently mentioned when people hear mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe sing. Since winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1994, she has been at the peak of her trade on opera and concert stages. New York has been her artistic home base for 20-plus years. This March, she finally makes her debut at BAM in an iconic role—Purcell’s Dido in Mark Morris’ Two Operas, which pairs Dido and Aeneas with Britten’s rarely performed Curlew River. Here she talks about the role, Morris, and other musical favorites.

David Hsieh: “Dido’s Lament” is the most famous aria in the opera. Is it also your favorite passage?

Stephanie Blythe: It is certainly one of them. It is probably the first aria that I ever heard. “Dido’s Lament” is used as the premiere example of “ground bass,” so it is part of every music history curriculum. The bass line is so evocative—it brings the performer and the audience along for the emotional ride, and it does so with so few notes. One of the things that makes it so special, and indeed the opera so special, is its economy. The story itself is very compact, and Purcell allows it to remain so—the arias and the ensembles are all distilled to their beautiful essence.
 

Holiday Party Tips from Mrs. Stahlbaum

Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Struggling to kindle that seasonal spark? Desperate to spice up your hum-drum holiday? Never fear, Mrs. Stahlbaum is here with enough flair and Christmas-tree flocking to transform any celebration. Study her stampede of tips, tricks, and treats, then see the party-master herself at work in Mark Morris Dance Group's The Hard Nut, coming to the Howard Gilman Opera House December 10—18!

In Context: Mark Morris Dance Group

The musically minded Mark Morris Dance Group returns to BAM April 22—26 with two programs representing two decades of the company’s diverse, passionate approach to contemporary dance paired with live music. Context is everything, so get even closer to the performance with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.

Cross-Dressing at BAM: A Brief Survey

By Louie Fleck

Reinhild Hoffman's Callas, performed by Tanztheater Bremen

The 1861 bylaws of the Brooklyn Academy of Music contain a little-known, and oddly undocumented, regulation. Without getting into confusing legal jargon, BAM is required to present, on a regular basis, men in women’s attire and women wearing outfits normally associated with men. Whatever our forward-thinking founding fathers had in mind, we have gladly complied. Here is a quick historical scan of cross-dressing at BAM.

Cross-dressing has long been essential to storytelling history. In numerous Greek, Norse, and Hindu myths, sexual identities are switched, either as punishment or as a way to avoid detection.

Males played the female parts in Shakespeare’s original productions. But within the plays are numerous instances of characters switching genders to achieve a questionable goal or complicate the plot. Speaking of the Bard, in 2011, Ed Hall’s company Propeller blew the roof off of the Harvey Theater with a wonderful, over-the-top production of The Comedy of Errors.

Mark Morris's Choral Fantasies

Photo: Mark Morris, by Amber Star Merkens

Choreographer Mark Morris loves music. He talks about it constantly. He’s won awards for its advocacy. And he has a web radio show devoted to things he wants you to hear. He’s even quipped that “the Mark Morris Dance Group is a music organization.” Why so? Because “every dance ever,” Morris insists, “is because of the music.”

But specifically live music.“Why do I use live music?,” Morris asks, putting economic questions aside. “I would turn that question around and ask why would you use recorded music. Why am I the freak? Live music is music. The fact that recorded music has become so acceptable is unacceptable to me. If you have to use recorded music, then don't do the piece.”

Even if the piece demands a 60-person orchestra, a virtuosic piano soloist, and full chorus.

Beethoven’s tour-de-force Fantasy in C minor, Op.80—to which Morris’ dancers will perform the world premiere of A Choral Fantasy Thursday night—requires no less. The logistical nightmare of fitting all of those musicians in the pit would alone make the work an unlikely musical choice for a choreographer. But there’s also the issue of its enormous personality, which has historical precedent for, well, stealing the show.

The work premiered in 1808, on a benefit concert Beethoven held to raise money for himself when he had none. That he was somewhat desperate to maximize his return is evident in the colossal, four-hour program that resulted. On the docket was nothing less than his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies (both premieres!), the magisterial Fourth Piano Concerto (a Vienna premiere), portions of the Mass in C, the scena and aria from Ah! Perfido, Op.65, and a smattering of improvisations by Beethoven on the piano. How powerful a presence did he consider his C minor Fantasy? It was the encore, written especially for the concert—the Atlas holding up another Atlas, who’d already held up the world.

Speaking of ambition, it has been argued that the Fantasy was something of a study for an even bigger work: the Ninth Symphony, that other of Beethoven’s gargantuan masterpieces culminating in a triumphant choral hymn to universal brotherhood. You can hear the relationship in the two themes, one in some ways the inversion of the other:

Excerpt, Fantasy in C minor, Op.80

Excerpt, Symphony No.9, Op.125, Fourth Movement

In any event, getting to see such a gifted choreographer work with such musical forces is a rare opportunity. We've woefully neglected to talk about dance proper, but suffice it to say that if “every dance is because of the music” as Morris says, then the ostensible reason we need dance in the first place is because it reveals something in that music (and, clearly, in itself) that the music couldn’t reveal alone. That Morris’ musical choices are ambitious speaks to just how much his dances have to say.