The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra rules when it comes to mashing up live music with images. But this week, the orchestra takes on a more formidable challenge: performing Arnold Schoenberg’s symphonic tone poem Pelléas und Mélisande with visual accompaniment of projections and video created by innovative young director, production designer and visual artist James Darrah.
“This is nearly 40 minutes of continuous music, so it’s more like a cousin of Lumenocity,” says CSO Music Director Louis Langrée. He had not seen any of Darrah’s previous productions, but Langrée knew of his work with the San Francisco Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And there was another connection.
Last year, Darrah staged Don Giovanni for the Milwaukee Symphony, where Isaac Thompson, an alumnus of the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, served on the artistic operations staff. In January, Thompson assumed the position of the CSO’s director of artistic operations. He arranged for Langrée and Darrah to meet, and in May the two artists sat down in Langrée’s East Walnut Hills home to discuss potential projects. Read the full feature here.
LOVE FORBIDDEN: LOUIS CONDUCTS THE PELLÉAS STORY
opens Friday and continues Saturday at Music
Hall. More info: cincinnatisymphony.org.
This article appears in Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2015.
