Ensemble Parallèle's Great Gatsby Preview
January 24, 2012
* Notes *
A sneak preview of Ensemble Parallèle's next production, The Great Gatsby, was held at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music last week. Conductor Nicole Paiement took us through several musical examples with pianist Keisuke Nakogoshi and six of the cast members. Susannah Biller (pictured above as Daisy Buchanan, photograph by Rapt), Jason Detwiler (Nick Carraway), Marco Panuccio (Jay Gatsby), Erin Neff (Myrtle Wilson), Daniel Snyder (Tom Buchannan), and Julienne Walker (Jordan Baker) looked and sounded utterly comfortable, despite the fact that rehearsals had only started the day before.
Jacques Desjardins, who has re-orchestrated John Harbison's work for chamber orchestra, was on hand to speak about the challenges of this undertaking. The number of musicians has been taken from 120 down to 30. The music is brass heavy, and Desjardins has had to use woodwinds to make up for this in the chamber version. The harp part also presented an interesting problem, as the sound of the instrument is so particular.
Director Brian Staufenbiel also gave us a glimpse of the set design and the concepts behind some of the stage elements. His style seems to be stylized rather than descriptive. One does look forward to seeing and hearing the piece. Three performances are presented between Friday, February 10 to Sunday, February 12 at the Novellus Theatre, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
* Tattling *
There was light talking and some electronic noise.