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[Melodie]

FROM THE LOUISVILLE, KY COURIER-JOURNAL:

Mercurio puts mark on Fanfara

By Andrew Adler • September 5, 2004
[email protected]
The Courier-Journal

You might say conductor Steven Mercurio is a creature of two artistic identities.

The first has taken him to the intriguing periphery of opera — works such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "Die Todt Stadt," Andre Previn's "A Streetcar Named Desire" and perhaps oddest of all, "La Cavalieri di Ekebi."

A composer as well, he's done stints music-directing the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Spoleto Festivals in America and Italy.

Yet just as strong are his more popular allegiances, especially his ongoing association with crossover tenor Andrea Bocelli and a slew of recordings along the lines of "Christmas in Vienna."

Elements of both identities are likely to surface Saturday night at 8:30, when Mercurio conducts the Louisville Orchestra in its annual Fanfara season-opening concert at the Kentucky Center.

He's the first of a half-dozen guest conductors slated to visit Whitney Hall between now and May, as the orchestra searches for a music director to succeed Uriel Segal, who left after his contract was not renewed at the end of 2003-04.

Though the search is just being organized, Mercurio is looming as a podium go-to guy. Besides Saturday's Fanfara concert, he'll conduct two subscription programs in February, the most of anyone this season.

What's his allure? Well, he's American, youngish (48) and seemingly possessed of the spirit that appeals to people like Louisville Orchestra board president Manning G. Warren III, who believes Mercurio has a lot to offer.

Enough people mentioned Mercurio to prompt the board leader earlier this year to fly to New York and hear him conduct a Bocelli concert in Madison Square Garden.

"I thought the audience was reacting at least as much to him as to Bocelli," Warren recalled.

After the concert, "we chatted, primarily about his background and his devotion to broadening classical music audiences," Warren said. "He recognized the tendency to attract an older audience and thought it possible to attract a younger demographic," mingling "more creative repertoire along with more established" material.

Mercurio recalled that Warren asked "could I fill in X amount of dates to at least keep the season moving forward, to be part of the (music director) search and help bridge that gap."

Though much of the Fanfara programming had already been decided, Mercurio said he urged that certain changes be made.

Keeping star bluegrass violinist Mark O'Connor was fine, because he and Mercurio had collaborated successfully on previous ventures — including a recording of O'Connor's own violin concerto that was slated for the Fanfara event. "If Copland had written a concerto," Mercurio said, "this would be it."

Less engaging, however, were Copland's "A Lincoln Portrait" and Barber's "Adagio for Strings." The former lacked a true star narrator ("Don't just give me John Q. Public doing it," Mercurio said), and the latter piece, intended to acknowledge the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was too severe, Mercurio said.

"This was a very difficult program to balance out," Mercurio acknowledged. "You've got 9/11; you don't want to ignore it." Still, Barber's oft-played Adagio wasn't quite right.

"It's not 'Platoon' — we are not walking into a war zone," Mercurio said. In its place, he chose Delius' "The Walk to the Paradise Garden," an interlude from the composer's opera "Romeo and Juliet."

"It's a life-affirming, positive, moving piece," alluding to how "we have to pick up the pieces" after a tragedy, Mercurio said.

The Delius piece "will set the scene with reverence, but also with beauty and a sense of elegance."

Mercurio said he wasn't crazy about conducting Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World") as the Fanfara finale, but concert organizers were pretty insistent.

"They lobbied heavily to put a standard work" in to anchor the program, he said, and "there is a limit to how much fighting I wanted to do before even setting foot in the place."

'The orchestra has to evolve'

Reality is reality, and Mercurio appreciates how anxious orchestra officials are about this decidedly atypical season.

"They are very worried in this transitional year not to lose their subscription base," he said, though "I was very worried for them not to take a step backward in the process."

Born in Bardonia, N.Y., not far from New York City, Mercurio earned his undergraduate degree from Boston University and a master's in conducting from Juilliard.

After four years as an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, he spent a brief time as music director of Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, S.C., and a longer stint in the same role at Italy's Spoleto Festival.

Since 1997, he's been largely a freelance conductor, now spending a portion of each year collaborating with Bocelli and taking on various concert and opera assignments in the United States and Italy.

This summer he led an all-American symphonic program in Florence; later this season he'll conduct such works as Zandonai's "Cavalieri" in Trieste, Marc Blitzstein's "Regina" at the Kennedy Center in Washington and Puccini's "Tosca" for Michigan Opera Theatre. Several recordings, mainly for Sony, are also in the mix.

Like nearly everyone in the classical music business, Mercurio has noted the fiscal woes various orchestras have suffered in recent years.

"Maybe the position of the orchestra has to evolve. It means that music directors need to be more available and more responsive to the community. ... Some people still think that the music will take care of itself, but it doesn't."

Insufficient off-the-podium involvement was one of the Louisville Orchestra board's chief motivations for not renewing Segal's contract — though Segal believed he'd done all that was asked of him.

Mercurio's take is that a music director "has got to be a part of the community," to persuade people to come to concerts "instead of staying home and buying a video."

"You have to engage them on a human level, not just saying that this is great art and if it doesn't engage them, tough," Mercurio said. "Talk to the ladies; go to the Rotary Club; go to basketball games and meet Rick Pitino. It doesn't mean you're selling out. Too many concerts are going in with the hall half full," and music directors can no longer insist that they live only for the music.

"For a 21st-century orchestra — at least in the U.S. — we can't afford to have that attitude."

But that extra involvement doesn't have to dilute the art, he said. "Why should it? When I step on the podium it's me, the music and the orchestra. It's all part of the process."

Is Mercurio a candidate to fill the vacant music director spot? "That all depends on how it comes out," he said, referring to his guest commitment for this season. "You can never force someone to love you, but if an honest affection develops between me and the orchestra and the organization and the city — and we seem to be on the same page — then we will go on from there."

http://www.louisvillescene.com/2004/09/05/arts_mercurio.html

[sj]

I asked a friend yesterday if she wanted to go to see Andrea in Chicago with me -- she said -- only if Mercurio is conducting --- !!!! (I guess we each have our own obsessions....) Does anyone know: Is Mercurio conducting on the Royal Christmas tour?