Review: Mikis Theodorakis Feted In New York

Concert honoring composer closes with his 'Zorba the Greek' ballet suite.

NEW YORK — Long admired by film buffs for his scores to "Zorba the Greek," "Serpico" and "Z," Greek composer, political activist and playwright Mikis Theodorakis was honored for his concert music on Monday by Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
Joined by soprano Alessandra Marc, mezzo Mary-Ellen Nesi, tenor Howard Haskin, baritone Petr Migounov and the 125-strong MSO Chorus, Dutoit and the orchestra took the occasion to pay tribute to Theodorakis on his 75th birthday.
The event, at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, was organized by the North American Foundation for Modern Greek Arts, headed Costas Spiliadis, a friend of Dutoit and the composer.
Dutoit has championed the works of Theodorakis in concerts of late (and on a Decca recording to be released next fall), and given the composer's fascinating résumé, it is easy to understand why. For several decades Theodorakis has led a colorful and storied career as an anti-fascist crusader, a composer of more than 900 songs and three operas, and a darling of Hollywood studios.
Above all, Theodorakis aims to serve the people, and it is this (however worthy) populist impulse that sometimes lessens the depth of results in his "serious" concert music.
The rousing "Songs of Praise," from Canto Olympico (commissioned for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona), was marred by a lot of bland, heavy-handed gestures and simplistic harmonic changes. Similarly inconsequential was the atmospheric Adagio for Flute and Trumpet (Tim Hutchins and Paul Merkelo doing the honors).
Greater musical ingenuity was to be had in the fourth and fifth scenes from his recent opera Antigone. That Theodorakis has sometimes been called the "Verdi of Greece" makes sense given the music's intensely melodramatic, verismo style. The majority of the two scenes were dominated by long, lyrical passages sung by the title character, whose tragic fate Theodorakis likens to the plight of modern-day conscientious objectors.
Marc, the American lyric soprano, summoned up a gorgeous, powerhouse diva sound for this role, and Haskin matched it with some authoritative solo turns of his own. Marc then returned after intermission with a smoothly delivered aria from the composer's 1991 adaptation of the Euripides tragedy Medea.
The nearly three-hour extravaganza concluded with Theodorakis' greatest hit, the popular "Zorba the Greek" ballet suite, which abounded in zesty, pulsating bouzouki rhythms. Dutoit and his forces downplayed the score's more clichéd moments while deftly capturing all of its rhapsodic energy and spark.
— Brian Wise