United States Blossom Music Festival 2025 [5]: Christiane Karg (soprano), Cleveland Orchestra / Elim Chan (conductor). Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, 9.8.2025. (MSJ)
Ravel – Shéhérazade
Mahler – Symphony No.1 in D major
A few notes into Ravel’s Shéhérazade, and it was clear that what had been missing in recent concerts by the Cleveland Orchestra under various guest conductors was suddenly here: Mystery. Tension. A sense of occasion. Elim Chan, conducting without a baton, set the stage for soprano Christiane Karg to float notes exquisitely for a breathtaking performance. The longer song, ‘Asie’, maintained focus, briefly erupting in a potent orchestral climax before shimmering back into exotic softness. Jessica Sindell, who has had a starring summer as soloist this year, embodied the enchanted flute of the second song, intertwined with the soprano’s limpid lines. Karg reached her expressive peak in the quiet third song, ‘L’Indifférent’, where her yearning notes hung in the air like pearls, and you could see her see, in her mind’s eye, the object of desire walking past, indifferently. These songs are always welcome visitors, but this performance was one to remember.
The Mahler First that followed after intermission was an equally if not more notable occasion. Let me be blunt: this performance led by Elim Chan gave us more idiomatic Mahler than any led in Cleveland in the past forty years by Dohnányi, Boulez, Ashkenazy or Welser-Möst. It featured insightful attention to the details of the score, balanced by a long-term vision of where the music was going. Unlike some recent conductors whose pretty motions weren’t reflected in what the Cleveland Orchestra was actually playing, there was a direct correlation here between gesture and result. Not everyone may like the result, which was bold, with the brass allowed to play out far more than has typically been the case in recent decades, but it was right for this music.
The first movement began with patiently paced intensity that slowly warmed into the main theme, a tricky transition that many fail to achieve organically. It was done here to perfection. The movement built with attention to Mahler’s expressive phrasing in the strings. The trancelike middle part of the movement brought a wonderful detail: almost all conductors miss that the cellos’ swooping glissandos are supposed to disappear for several measures at the height of the spell and only return after the atmosphere clears. Chan nailed it, right down to the exuberant close. Then she wiped off her brow with her shirtsleeve and got back to work.
That second movement started – as marked in the score – slightly under tempo, then leaned into the main pace. The trio was kept flexibly supple, with the coda of the reprise moving forward and not establishing an entirely new tempo. The mock funeral march of the third movement balanced somberness with withering irony, the exquisite double bass solo – from First Assistant Principal Charles Paul – leaning toward the former, with Jeffrey Rathbun’s oboe solo leaning toward the latter. The klezmer elements popped vividly, contrasting with the tender middle section.
The last movement truly exploded for once, with a violence evoking a storm that is as much of the soul as it is an evocation of weather. Chan kept the momentum going across the movement’s wide range without stinting on the expressive byways. The difficulty and extreme demands of the piece saw a few broken brass notes and ragged attacks along the way, but I would much rather hear a performance that goes for glory like this than one that plays it safe and goes nowhere at all. The piece rocketed into its final pages, bringing a visceral audience response, particularly on Chan’s return to the stage on repeated curtain calls.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
Featured Image: Christiane Karg sings Ravel with Elim Chan and The Cleveland Orchestra © Scott Esterly/TCO