THE Magazine - Dallas / Forthworth

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my! Join Dorothy and her crew as they seek the great wizard in this multimedia production of the Wizard of Oz. Watch the beautifully restored Oscar-winning film featuring Judy Garland's original vocal recordings, set to the lush soundtrack performed live by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Both adults and children will enjoy this rousing reinvention of a classic. The performance also includes new transcriptions of Harold Arlen's lost scores. Oz with Orchestra is presented by John Goberman, Emmy Award-winning producer of Live from Lincoln Center and the creator of the critically acclaimed A Symphonic Night at the Movies. Principal Pops Conductor Ron Spigelman conducts.

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is to be commended for its non-traditional programming. So far this season the orchestra and its music director, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, have presented three Mahler symphonies on three consecutive nights, a concert featuring pieces by modern and contemporary South American composers, and -- on October 31 -- Stravinsky's ballet Petrouchka with puppets choreographed by the hip and intelligent puppeteer Basil Twist.
All these concerts built excitement and encouraged new ways of listening -- by focusing intently on a single work, in the case of the Mahler symphonies, and by using familiar geography -- the Andes Mountains -- to organize unfamiliar music. Twist's Petrouchka was to magnify Stravinsky's musical narrative with dancing puppets, return the piece to its origins as ballet music, and add magic and whimsy to the nearly impeccable score.
Instead, Petrouchka fell flat. The reasons, I think, were mostly logistical. Fort Worth's Petrouchka performances were the first Mr. Twist adapted for live orchestra. Earlier, critically acclaimed performances of Petrouchka in New York City used Stravinsky's two-piano arrangement, and the puppets played against a nearly-black backdrop. At Bass Hall, the puppets -- and most tellingly, their handlers, three to a doll -- strode back and forth on stage in front of the orchestra, their backdrop a clutter of musicians and moving bows softly illuminated by music stand lights.
Instead of being pulled in by the charming story -- about three puppets brought to life at a county fair, and one puppet, the clown Petrouchka, falling in love -- I was distracted by a tangle of arms and legs as the black, ninja-clad handlers manipulated the half-life-size dolls. The puppets never achieved the illusion of life and of independent movement.
While Mr. Twist's choreography obviously traced the ballet's simple narrative -- and the orchestra accompanied with all of Stravinsky's musical colors and spry rhythms -- the puppet pantomime was a series of jiggly tableaus. The herky-jerky movements were devoid of nuance, let alone heightened emotion. The ending, in which Petrouchka's enchanted soul returns, was played somewhere in a flash of light high up in Bass Hall's painted sky dome. Unless it was a symbolic flash, I missed its meaning -- and the ballet's happy ending.
In this setting, Mr. Twist's Petrouchka was more confusing than enlightening. But the FWSO should keep inventing new, off-the-wall programs. Just because an experiment fails doesn't mean you should shut down the lab.

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra's Mahler Cycle festival, held August 21-24 at Bass Hall, should not have happened. Regional orchestras like Fort Worth's rarely play the music of Gustav Mahler. With only sixty-three permanent players, the orchestra is too small, for one thing. (Mahler's orchestras often number over one hundred and call for weird instruments like tenor horns and cowbells.)
And let's face it -- the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is not supposed to be good enough to tackle Mahler -- let alone make a festival of it. Common sense says these massive symphonies are best left to major orchestras in places such as New York, Chicago, and Dallas. But Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Fort Worth's Peruvian-born conductor, changed that thinking when he was hired in 2000. He didn't worry about the orchestra's status, or critics' preconceptions, or technical challenges. He just dove into the music. Thanks to his talent and devotion, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra is playing great these days. Its performances of Mahler's Sixth, Seventh and Second symphonies on consecutive nights last August proved that he can conjure performances of stunning emotional transformation.
During the Mahler festival, the whole of the orchestra was greater than the sum of its parts. Even playing not pristine -- the opening brass chorale in "Urlicht" in the Second Symphony was a bit ragged; the second "Nachtmusik" in the Seventh was more forthright than charming; and woodwinds brayed a bit in the "Scherzo" of the Sixth -- did not detract from the music's coherence, cohesion, or impact.
This is Harth-Bedoya's gift, one enjoyed by all great conductors -- to craft honest and intense interpretations with whatever forces are before him. (Harth-Bedoya is a frequent guest conductor with the orchestras in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia - so his talent has not gone unnoticed. He's under contact with Fort Worth through the 2010-11 season.) The music-making in the Fort Worth Symphony's Mahler festival flowed both ways -- Harth-Bedoya honed his ideas during three weeks of rehearsals, then allowed his musicians -- never slouches to begin with -- to play up their strengths. As Harth-Bedoya explained, "You can't force orchestras to play the way they are not." Together, conductor and ensemble created interpretations of vivid resonance.
The concluding stinger chords of the Seventh were electric with both finality and anticipation. The last movement of the Second -- with its brassy calls to arms and choir and orchestra's stormy declarations of triumph over death -- propelled listeners deep into Mahler's ideas of life eternal. The true measure of the Fort Worth Symphony's Mahler Cycle is not how its performances stack up against the world's major ensembles but how the music connected viscerally with those in attendance.