Classical Concert in Shenyang, China - Ying String Quartet, Eastman School of Music

Three years ago, my hometown Shenyang, Manchurian city in northeastern China, opened a new complex for performing arts - Shengjing Grand Theatre, which consisted of an 1800-seat opera house, a concert hall, and a multiple-functional playhouse. During day time, the diamond shaped dark complex looked like a squatting tortoise; when the night arrived, the many lights dotting its transparent surfaces gave it a look of a giant gemstone, though the constant shifting of the colors of those lights was rather cheeky.









In October 2017, I had an opportunity to attend a chamber music concert in the concert hall situated on the 7th floor of the complex.



Once having entered the complex, audience members had to go through security check — apparently the common practice in China now, in most public places, such as theaters, train terminals and subway stations.



The front lobby was simple and traditional — welcoming without overwhelming.





On the second floor, the odd-shaped and vast lobby, sandwiched between the curved wall of the opera house and the trusst structure of the transparent outer shell, was pleasantly airy and intriguing, enticing theater goers to gawk and socialize.







The 7th Floor was very subdued and had an atmosphere of modern day church, preparing audience for an experience of near spirituality.







The arena-styled Concert Hall had only one floor; apparently, the designer and management were convinced that more seats were not needed for this industrial city, which could boast only rather modest history of classical music.











The concert I attended was performed by Ying String Quartet from the excellent conservatory in the USA — Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. All the performers were faculty members from the music school and each taught the instruments they performed.

The theater provided no information as what the program was, neither online, nor inside the theater, and the ushers were of no help either, though they did know the length of the performance.





Once on stage, the viola player introduced themselves and the program - string quartets by Borodin, Ravel, and Dvořák. The speaker spoke only in English and no translation was provided; though many audience members seemed understood well and responded at the right timing. Not everyone understood English for sure, including my parents, who was left in the dark, but applauded politely when cued.

The acoustic of the hall proved excellent, with good combination of clarity, warmth, and immediacy. The hall was barely half-full and many people played their mobile phone, during the performance, taking photos or videos of the performance, sometimes even selfies, or just chatting with friends.

For the encore, gratefully, Tchaikovsky String Quartet No. 1 Op. 11 - II. Andante cantabile movement was performed, instead of gratuitous local flavored offerings, and cemented a night of solid music making.


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Tianjin Grand Theatre's Heating Trouble

Less than a year ago, on May 31, 2012, New York Times reported the opening of a grand theater in Tianjin, a metropolis next to Beijing, China.  "The Tianjin Grand Theater cost $240 million to build, and is among many such arts complexes recently built in large Chinese cities.

Like most grand theaters, the Tianjin Grand Theater houses an opera house (1,600 seats), concert hall (1,200 seats) and multi-function hall (400 seats).

As is also the norm, it was designed by a prestigious foreign architecture firm — in this case the Germany firm gmp-Architekten — and has state-of-the-art everything, from mobile phone jammers and LED screens to the portable pipe organ commissioned from a Czech organ builder. Whereas most grand theaters are built as stand-alone structures, however, this one, in this city south of Beijing on the Chinese coast, is part of a massive new 90-hectare, or about 220-acre, cultural center that includes the Tianjin Museum, Natural History Museum, Library, Art Gallery and Youth Activity Center, as well as the requisite shopping mall."







A year later, the glitz chilled considerably when the visiting Royal New Zealand Ballet had to cancel its schedule two performances of "Giselle" at the last minute due to the cold temperature inside the theater.

According to the theater's statement, the theater is heated by the city and is dependent on the city's central heating planning.  The theater, with its glass panel walls, could not contain heat inside properly.  The central heating system in Chinese cities are generally governed by calendar, not the real temperature.  In my home city Shenyang, a far colder city, the central heating for residents stopped at March 31.  In mid April, when it snowed in Shenyang, my parents had to retreat to one room with a unit heater to fend off the chill.

Tianjin Grand Theatre did was just that.  According to some report, the temperature in the theater was only 23 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) while the dance company requested for 23 Celsius (73.4 Fahrenheit).  The theater then borrowed dozens of industrial heater to pump up the temperature but they were only able to make it to 20 Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).

In order to avoid severe injuries to its dancers, reluctantly, Royal New Zealand Ballet cancelled the scheduled performances on 20 and 21 of April, 2013.  The theater then locked up the visiting troupe's costumes and other equipments and only released them when the New Zealand diplomats intervened.  The theater in turn, offered refunds or alternative performances to the disappointed ticket holders.

Most people in China reacted to this story by questioning the design and maintenance of this expensive theater.  Good question asked.

Theater Experiences in Wien (Vienna)

Franz Schubert star near Musikverein, Wien

Wien (Vienna) means music and style.  In Vienna, the stars are given to composers and musicians - Schubert, Bach, Brahms, Berg, von Einem and von Karajan, etc., instead of film stars and starlets in Hollywood.

When I visited Vienna last month, my second trip to Vienna, I attended three different theatrical performances, all in renown venues, within a brief span of six nights.

Volksoper Wien

The first performance we attended was a night of three modern ballets at Volksoper.  The options then included Viennese operettas, such as Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow), a quintessential Viennese confection, but it was vetoed by my partner and we chose the ballet night instead, for its modernity and daring (see the preview video below).  It turned out to be a wonderful night of theater.  The three modern ballets were, in the order of performance and ascending scale of the pieces, Claude Debussy's "Nachmittag eines Fauns", Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" and Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana", performed by Wiener Staatsballett.

The first piece was intimate and small, with only two dancers, and the last was ambitious, set to a full orchestra, several choruses and multiple couples and corps, while the middle one was, in the middle of everything.  The first piece was lovely but just a tad underwhelming and the last one, hour long, had some muddy moments and sagging energy amongst generally very satisfying presentation and poignant choreographed dances; it was the middle piece made the strongest impact through its glorious choreography by Boris Nebyla, incredibly beautiful costume, and unflagging energy of the music.  It was one of the most satisfying theatrical pieces I have ever enjoyed.











Volksoper is the "second" or "third" opera house in Vienna.  The top one was the most exulted Wiener Staatsoper, and the other one might be "Theater an der Wien", where Beethoven's Fidelio premiered.  There were only Puccinis in those houses in the week I was in Vienna so I had to pass them over.  In 2002, I did enjoy a performance of Bellini's La Sonnambula at Wiener Staatsoper.  Standing section.  Cost 3 euros.  At that time, a guided tour of that house was 5 euros.  The house was much more grandiose and glamorous.  Formal too.  In the cafe inside the house, a server wore a name tag identifying her as Frau XXX.  Volksoper, in contrast, was a little smaller, more intimate and more down to earth.  After all, it was called "Folks' Opera".  Yet, it was in that "people's house" that my partner was made to check his quite nice-looking and almost formal black windbreaker, where in Staatsoper, a similar but more casual windbreaker cost no concern, and was also in the presence of Present Havel in Prague.  At Volksoper, My blazer was sanctioned by the usher.

For comparison, below are a group picture of Wiener Staatsoper I took during this trip:









The second performance we attended was a play in one of the most prestigious theaters in German speaking world - Burgtheater in Vienna.







The play we chose to see was Prinz Priedrich von Homburg by Heinrich von Kleist.  It was a seminal play on discipline, militarism and reason. It was a co-production with Salzburg Festival and in the title role, starred the wonderful young German actor August Diehl.  There were many young people in audience, perhaps high school students - the tickets were as low as 2.5 euros.  I didn't know if the high percentage of young people was the norm or not, or they were particularly lured by the heartthrob Diehl.







It was a sparse, modern and fiercely intelligent production, yet emotional raw and wrenching - two and half hours without intermission breezed through.  I did my homework by reading both original German texts and English translation in advance, plus listening to a radio play produced in 1950s.   







The most venerated musical venue in Vienna for symphonic performances was the Großer Saal (Great Hall), sometimes called Golden Hall, of Musikverein (Music Association).  It was the venue for annual Vienna New Year's Concert, televised all over the world.  The building was an ornate classical structure, with elaborate decorations inside the hall, centering around Apollo and nine muses gracing the golden-trimmed ceiling.







Wikipedia described the Großer Saal thus:

The Großer Musikvereinssaal, or Goldener Saal (Golden Hall), is about 49 m (161 ft) long, 19 m (62 ft) wide, and 18 m (59 ft) high. It has 1,744 seats and standing room for 300. The annual Vienna New Year's Concert is held here. Its lively acoustics are primarily based on Hansen's intuition as he could not rely on any studies on architectural acoustics. The room's rectangular shape and proportions, its boxes and sculptures allow early and numerous sound reflections. The original equipment comprised a historic pipe organ built by Friedrich Ladegast, the first organ recital was held by Anton Bruckner in 1872. The present–day organ was originally installed by the Austrian firm Rieger Orgelbau in 1907, highly esteemed by musicians such as Franz Schmidt or Marcel Dupré, and rebuilt in 2011.

The program we enjoyed was performed by Wiener Symphoniker, conducted by Vladimir Fedosejev, Dirigent, with Edgar Krapp as organ soloist.  The pieces they performed were:

• Werner Egk: Französische Suite nach Rameau für großes Orchester
• Alexandre Guilmant: Symphonie für Orgel und Orchester Nr. 1 d - Moll, op. 42
  -------- Pause ----------
• Modest Petrowitsch Mussorgskij: "Bilder einer Ausstellung" für Orchester bearbeitet von Maurice Ravel
  Encore:
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Ouverture Nr. 3 D - Dur, BWV 1068 - 2. Satz (Air)

It was glorious performance in a glorious hall.  I enjoyed the Egk and Mussorgky pieces very much.  Guilmant's organ symphony was not very engaging but it did allow the organ to go full blast and it was very impressive indeed.  For that experience's sake, I was glad for its inclusion.

The Wiener Symphoniker was a great symphonic orchestra, though overshadowed by the higher-profiled Wiener Philharmoniker.  Unfortunately, Wiener Philharmoniker was not performing both time I was in Vienna.  Therefore, a return to Vienna is a must.

We enjoyed the concert with our hosting friends, who were inspired and attempted to subscribe to the Wiener Philharmoniker's concerts but was told that they ought to wait for 13 years.  

Indeed, Vienna does mean music.

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Label: Austria, Austria and Italy Trip 2012