By now it’s quite clear that Eve Wolf has carved out a special theater niche. A pianist and writer—or is it writer and pianist?—she has presented, as executive director of Ensemble for the Romantic Century, any number of productions to date in which classical music is an integral element.
The music is so important that it be can said without fear of contradiction that the play element is often not a great deal more than a peg on which to hang the music—and just as often the musicians she lines up are impressive enough to compensate for any script limitations.
The new example of these pluses and minuses is Maestro, the titular character: Arturo Toscanini (John Noble). Wolf introduces the legendary figure as he’s conducting (a recording of Giuseppe Verdi’s Ohimé di guerra fremere) in NBC’s studio 8-H in 1938. This is just after he’s emigrated to New York City and taken over the NBC Symphony Orchestra that David Sarnoff created for him.
Interrupting the rehearsal at least twice to lash out at what he perceives as lazy musicians, he ends the session in order to flash back to his 1930s life under Benito Mussolini and in Adolf Hitler’s shadow. An adamant anti-Fascist furious over the loss of Jewish musicians whom he valued, Toscanini talks about his sentiments, all of which Wolf has taken from letters, interviews and the like. She frequently has a desk placed prominently. (Vanessa James is the frequent ERC set designer. So is this the same desk used for previous Wolf entries?).
Excoriating Hitler and at one point calling himself “an honorary Jew,” Toscanini picks up a letter from the Fuhrer inviting him to conducting a concert. He reports his turning the invitation down. (Previously, he’s mentioned knowing Verdi.) His declarations along these lines aren’t, however, his only concern. He talks about his passion for Ada Mainardi, his mistress. (She was married to a cellist he favored.)
Before the two acts end—act one is Europe, act two New York—he has harped (no pun intended) more on the elusive Ada as well as talked about his father, a tailor who devoted his life to Giuseppe Garibaldi’s political and military campaigns. He rhapsodizes (again no pun intended) over the NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York City and his United States years.
Though he comes and goes in various costumes (tuxedo, of course) and stands by the desk often (there’s an act-one desk chair and a different one for act two), and certainly speaks a fair amount, what he says gives a strong account of his temperament but still adds up to more a thumbnail sketch than a full biographical portrait.
Nonetheless, being in Toscanini’s company under these circumstances—Noble fine in white wig with effective accent but lacking at the maestro’s conducting—is a nice treat. Director Donald T. Sander helps see to that, and project designer David Bengali further enhances the ambience with pertinent newsreel footage and artistic videos.
The whole is even more a treat when the music is inserted. The musicians on stage are violinists Mari Lee and Henry Wang, violist Matthew Cohen, pianist Zhenni Li and trumpeter Maximilian Morel. They lend great skill to quartets, et cetera, by Verdi, Vespighi, Martucci, Tedesco and Fano.
Li’s reading of Wagner’s Liebestod in the Liszt version is worth the price of admission. Morel has arranged Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for trumpet, which is a bit of a shock. Toscanini listens contentedly, but wouldn’t the real legend have been slightly surprised at not hearing Gershwin’s opening clarinet outcry?
Considered from a strictly dramatic perspective, Maestro leaves something to be desired. Considered from a musically dramatic perspective, Maestro is completely satisfying, particularly for theater patrons so devoted to that pursuit that they don’t get to concert halls regularly enough. Perhaps it’s that population at whom Wolf is so committedly and fervently aiming.
Maestro opened January 14, 2019, at The Duke and runs through through February 9. Tickets and information: dukeon42.org
