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Home - Music
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Omaha’s New Instrument
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Omaha’s biggest musical events in 2005 weren’t actually musical. They were the people who make the music and the places where the music is made. The opening of a new concert hall and the changing of the guard at both the Omaha Symphony and Opera Omaha top the list.
Omaha’s newest music venue, the Holland Performing Arts Center, features a planar slab of glass in its orchestra lobby. It floats over the building entrance and overlooks the Leahy Mall in a masculine, modern stance. The main hall has a sophisticated, European look and is finished in a light-colored wood that gives the interior a friendly feeling.
Acoustically the hall is a significant leap forward from the Orpheum, a space designed as a movie house. Although successfully tweaked a couple of times, the acoustics of the extravagant old theater simply wasn’t suitable for musical performances.
The Holland, however, is much different. Renée Fleming’s a cappella version of Amazing Grace spiritually sung to a dead-silent house hanging on every phrase proved as much.
The exquisite acoustics of the Holland’s main hall can also be brutally honest; performers face a real challenge because everything gets heard. Dee Dee Bridgewater and her ensemble turned in a stellar performance of French songs shortly after the grand opening. However, the amplification used was either inducing electronic artifacts or run by a soundman on drugs. I left feeling pretty jangled.
Several other events without amps have convinced me that the Holland is a fine place to listen to music. It’s particularly well suited to an orchestra. A little bright sounding and quite resonant, particularly in the upper tiers, it emphasizes the sonority of the large ensemble. The sight lines are good and the feel is intimate despite the 2,000-seat capacity.
Dick and Mary Holland, who donated a significant amount of the funds needed to build the concert hall, have done something truly special for the city. If you see them at a concert, say thanks.
And while we’re at it, the outgoing artistic leadership of both the Symphony and the Opera deserve a bow. Victor Yampolsky and Hal France both made Omaha musically richer and more diverse. Each was able to imbue their concerts and operas with a humanity that reminded us why we bother to dress up and come to the show. That’s the wonderful thing about a ticket to a concert or an opera: You never know when it will buy a priceless experience. Both France and Yampolsky delivered just that, more than once.
Their successors — Thomas Wilkins at the Symphony and Stewart Robinson at the Opera — seem likely to continue the tradition. Wilkins distinguished himself by adding Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane to his January program to honor those who died in the tsunami, reminding us of the power great music has to bring comfort.
Robertson’s presentation of the W.H. Auden / Benjamin Britten opera Paul Bunyan showed he can think outside the box. Robinson was also responsible for the revival of Richard Rodney Bennett’s The Mines of Sulfur recently performed by the New York City Opera. The existential 12-tone opera is quite a ride. Maybe Opera Omaha can be persuaded to do it here.
Not everything newsworthy happened in the big arts organizations last year. Dundee Presbyterian’s Crescendo! Series continued to delight. Pianist Sara Buechner played a varied program in November that introduced many of us to the charming piano music of Rudolph Friml, which Buechner found in the back room of a Bronx music store. She concluded with a spectacular rendition of the piano version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
Finally, Analog Arts deserves a high five for their summer concert series, featuring twentieth century music and dubbed ARTSaha! Their presentation of little heard “modern” music, including Karlheinz Stockhausen outside on the Leahy Mall, continues to move Omaha forward musically. It’s been a very good year. |
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